I don't disagree with the overal theme of the article, but I have to disagree on some particulars. Some thoughts:
>Habit First
Absolutely agree, especially when you're trying to get out of morbid out-of-shapeness. I personally find that mixing it into a pre-existing daily routine works well. I personally do core work and pullups/chinups before my morning and evening showers, and stretch exercises while I'm in the shower.
>Diet
IMO the Diet section is way too detailed as a first step. For someone who is trying to improve from very poor nutrition, I would advise the following:
1. Get rid of all processed sugar products from your house: candy, juice, soda, cookies, etc. (imo all processed items are bad, but again it's about keeping the barrier low)
2. Only walk around the outside lanes of a Grocery store (where the meats, dairy, and vegetables are). Don't go into the middle aisles where they have all the sugary, salty, processed goodies. Keeping bad food out of the house is the easiest, lowest friction way to keep a healthy diet.
> Dumbbells first
Totally disagree with this one. Compound lifts using Barbells are vastly superior to isolation lifts using dumbbells, particularly for beginners. And for beginners, Starting Strength has proven time and time again to be the most effective program. [1]
If you're "starting out", then bodyweight exercises like pullups, chinups, bodyweight squats, planks, pushups, situps, are going to be low barrier to entry, good-habit inducing work that can be leveraged to take the person to the next level when they're comfortable. Once they're at this stage, they can buy whatever barbell setup they're comfortable with (I personally really want an Olympic Lifting platform in my garage...), which is going to be much much cheaper than that complicated Nautilus weight thing anyway.
>Safety
>Even with dummbells, I was able to put loads on my back that felt uncomfortable within about three months.
That' because dumbell lifts don't engage the stabilizer muscles. As a result, those support muscles are going to be underdeveloped and you won't have developed the coordination to engage them when you need them.
> Padded lifting gloves with wrist support helped keep my wrists in a stable, safe position and alleviated wrist pain.
IMO using outside assistance like this promotes bad form and bad habits.
>Str training machines
Ugh these machines are terrible. They (a) don't engage your auxiliary muscles well, and (b) move weights in an unnatural path relative to your body and tend to cause more injuries than just plan barbell work. A great example is squatting on a smith machine, which puts you into very dangerous positions. (yet every single small'ish gym believes that they are somehow safer than regular squat racks)
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I find it odd that the article started out with the premise of helping very novice people get into a healthier routine wrt both diet and exercise, yet evolved into a fairly intermediate article. IMO most people don't need to optimize strength training to this extent. Just getting in any kind of routine and eating well will go a lonnggggg ways.
Not all dumbell exercises are isolation. For most upper body barbell exercises, you can find a corresponding dumbell exercise which recruits more stabilizer muscle. Compare, for example, the barbell bench press to the dumbell version - the dumbell version is harder since you need to stabilize each dumbell in 2 directions rather than 1.
Or just look at the turkish get up. That's all stabilizer.
Of course, there is no substitute for squats and deadlifts. The closest is pistol squats which are great for advanced athletes, but pistol squats are very hard to do if you haven't done a lot of barbell squats first.
Dumbbell bench requires more stabilization muscles, but you'll be able to build more raw upper body strength with barbell bench.
I did dumbbell bench exclusively for close to a year, and got to the point that I could get 5 reps with the 120 pound dumbbells. However, when I moved over to barbell bench, there was surprisingly litte transfer - no real difference from where my barbell bench was before I started doing dumbbell.
Absolutely agree on squats and deadlifts. Squats should be the cornerstone of a strength program.
This is what I was thinking. There are dumbbell adaptations of most barbell exercises. I've been doing dumbbell deadlifts and the one-legged variant, as well as lunges.
They are certainly different and have a different emphasis and limitations, but for a lot of training goals they can do the job very well. And even the mini-gyms found in hotels and apartments tend to have some dumbbells, while the same access isn't there with barbells.
One doesn't need any barbell squats to do pistol squats. They are more about balance, flexibility and body shape. Short, flexible, fit women usually have no problems with them. Most little kids can do them with a bit of practice. Long legged inflexible men won't be able to do one without a lot of specific practice, even if they have a decent barbell squat.
"That' because dumbell lifts don't engage the stabilizer muscles. As a result, those support muscles are going to be underdeveloped and you won't have developed the coordination to engage them when you need them."
Untrue. Dumbbells offer a completely free range of motion, which is what activates the stabilizer muscles.
(source: google for "stabilizer muscles dumbbells" and you'll find a ton of information on the subject.)
Barbells are simply bigger and heavier dumbbells. However most dumbbells in the context the comment was referring to aren't heavy enough to actively engage the stabilizing muscles to any great effect.
The exercise also makes a big difference. Doing chest flys with dumbbells may feel like you are using a lot of stabilizers but actually you are no where near using as many as a free standing squat.
And of course you're using bigger muscles when doing more compound exercises so correspondingly the weight have to be bigger. I believe that's why in general most people would say barbells > dumbbells.
Yes, but I believe the stabilizer muscles (rotator cuff) can't continue to support the forces placed on them at a high enough weight. Generally, people "max out" stabilizers before muscles like pecs. So you plateau with dumbbells before barbells.
According to "starting strength", at some point you can't hold the dumbbells due to limitations in grip strength.
I do SS myself, but one of this article's requirements is he can't be bothered to go to a gym or to buy large gym equipment for his home. And he wants to do the whole workout in bits and pieces no longer than 30 minutes. With those kind of restrictions, dumbbells do fit his lifestyle better than barbells and I'm fine with that. There are many quite effective exercises you can do with dumbbells. Yes, dumbbells are sub-optimal compared to barbells, but he seems okay with sub-optimal, since his primary qualification seems to favor convenience over effectiveness.
As a non-gym goer (if I had the money...), what injuries are you talking about? I can guess that gyms want to protect people who try to lift more weight than they can, rather than straining from posture.
> As a non-gym goer (if I had the money...), what injuries are you talking about?
The problem with Smith Machines is that the movements are all linear, e.g. perfectly straight. NOTHING in your body moves in a perfectly straight line, there is an arc to almost everything you do.
Frequently people do squats with smith machines which will eventually hurt their backs from bad form.
(Indeed, I wince in pain sometimes watching people do horrible things to their backs in smith machines, holy crap!)
Now you CAN do things wrong with barbells of course, but many of the things done with a smith machine cannot be right at all!
> (if I had the money...),
My small local gym costs $200 a year.
Find a small local neighborhood gym (even if it isn't in your neighborhood!), they are always affordable!
And hey, body weight exercise programs are free. :)
If you're "starting out", then bodyweight exercises...
Bodyweight exercises can be extremely frustrating when you are really just starting out. When I first started, I couldn't do more than 5 pullups or about 20 pushups, which made it unnecessarily hard to progress. I switched to weights so that I could lower the load and do 3 sets, and immediately made much better progress.
Or put a chair or stool out in front of you and rest one leg on it. Try to take as much weight as possible with your arms, basically just resting your leg on the chair as opposed to actively pushing off against it. As your arms get stronger you'll naturally use the chair less until you can remove it entirely.
Also nice to essentially do a pull-up strip set. (Get a few extra pull-ups in when your muscles are fatigued and can no longer lift your whole weight.)
And this is the point where I see the problem with 'diet advice' given online (and not online, too, but a lot of it is online): It's overbroad and not broad enough, because it focuses on the wrong things. Bread is processed, but saying bread is bad is idiotic on its face. Meats are largely unprocessed, but a diet that's all meat is not a weight loss plan unless you live in the high Arctic and/or are doing an immense amount of exercise.
No food is bad in and of itself. It might be unhelpful in achieving a certain goal, but it is not bad. Trying to pigeonhole foods into 'good' and 'bad runs into the basic fact all foods are made of the same components and every component has its use. Yes, even fats. Yes, even carbohydrates.
It's possible to lose weight eating Twinkies in massive amounts. It even improved cholesterol levels.
It's true that processing isn't inherently evil; I've had good luck with protein and fiber shakes between very small meals. But processed white bread (or pasta or white rice) might as well be candy--just a big hit of carbs that'll leave you craving more right away. Whole wheat and brown rice are only somewhat better.
Not massive amounts. The Twinkie guy ate 1800 calories a day, including protein shakes. And vitamin suplements to cover his deficit. The balance of the diet matters, so it is a very narrow claim to say that twinkies aren't bad because someone has 1500 Twinkie calories per day and no other junk food
He just got all his carbs from twinkies, and used willpower to force himself to not eat when he was hungry. His "massive amounts" are the same that many people eat, plus they eat MORE other foods.
A bad food is something that doesn't satiate you as it gives you calories and fat, so you need to do other work to force yourself to not overeat. Example: twinkies
> A bad food is something that doesn't satiate you as it gives you calories and fat, so you need to do other work to force yourself to not overeat. Example: twinkies
OK, this is a reasonable first step. My point, really, is that even 'bad' foods can be part of a healthy diet, because health is determined by the overall diet.
Demonizing food leads to unhealthy psychological results in the form of the sin-guilt-redemption cycle, when what you really need to lose weight is a clear-headed appraisal of your current state and what you're capable of doing to reach your goal.
>Habit First
Absolutely agree, especially when you're trying to get out of morbid out-of-shapeness. I personally find that mixing it into a pre-existing daily routine works well. I personally do core work and pullups/chinups before my morning and evening showers, and stretch exercises while I'm in the shower.
>Diet
IMO the Diet section is way too detailed as a first step. For someone who is trying to improve from very poor nutrition, I would advise the following:
1. Get rid of all processed sugar products from your house: candy, juice, soda, cookies, etc. (imo all processed items are bad, but again it's about keeping the barrier low)
2. Only walk around the outside lanes of a Grocery store (where the meats, dairy, and vegetables are). Don't go into the middle aisles where they have all the sugary, salty, processed goodies. Keeping bad food out of the house is the easiest, lowest friction way to keep a healthy diet.
> Dumbbells first
Totally disagree with this one. Compound lifts using Barbells are vastly superior to isolation lifts using dumbbells, particularly for beginners. And for beginners, Starting Strength has proven time and time again to be the most effective program. [1]
If you're "starting out", then bodyweight exercises like pullups, chinups, bodyweight squats, planks, pushups, situps, are going to be low barrier to entry, good-habit inducing work that can be leveraged to take the person to the next level when they're comfortable. Once they're at this stage, they can buy whatever barbell setup they're comfortable with (I personally really want an Olympic Lifting platform in my garage...), which is going to be much much cheaper than that complicated Nautilus weight thing anyway.
>Safety
>Even with dummbells, I was able to put loads on my back that felt uncomfortable within about three months.
That' because dumbell lifts don't engage the stabilizer muscles. As a result, those support muscles are going to be underdeveloped and you won't have developed the coordination to engage them when you need them.
> Padded lifting gloves with wrist support helped keep my wrists in a stable, safe position and alleviated wrist pain.
IMO using outside assistance like this promotes bad form and bad habits.
>Str training machines
Ugh these machines are terrible. They (a) don't engage your auxiliary muscles well, and (b) move weights in an unnatural path relative to your body and tend to cause more injuries than just plan barbell work. A great example is squatting on a smith machine, which puts you into very dangerous positions. (yet every single small'ish gym believes that they are somehow safer than regular squat racks)
---
I find it odd that the article started out with the premise of helping very novice people get into a healthier routine wrt both diet and exercise, yet evolved into a fairly intermediate article. IMO most people don't need to optimize strength training to this extent. Just getting in any kind of routine and eating well will go a lonnggggg ways.
[1] http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/The_Starting_Strength...