Weight Lifting Equipment
When you want to put on some muscle mass quickly, weight lifting equipment is often your first source of assistance. Nothing will give you the same results as working with weight lifting equipment, so it makes sense that they are stop number one. But what kind of weight lifting equipment should you turn to in order to beef up your workout? There really is no single, right, answer to this question; it just depends on what your personal preference is, your access to weight lifting equipment is and your physical mobility needs are.
Benefits of Weight Lifting Equipment
When attempting to build muscle, you can use your own body as resistance. This means you can do exercises like pushups, pull ups and sit ups. These exercises use your own body weight as the resistance that builds your muscle, but they do not offer all the same benefits as weight lifting equipment does. Weight lifting equipment is often built to be ergonomically pleasing. That means, if you use it properly, you will not have the back and neck strain that is sometimes associated with pushups, sit ups and pull ups.
Additionally, using your own body as resistance will only take you so far. Unless you gain weight, there is a limited benefit that can be gained with this method. You may initially bulk up, but subsequent sessions may result in simply maintenance and not further body building. Weight lifting equipment offers you a vast array of bulking options since you can continue to increase the amount of weight you can lift ad infinitum. In addition, many types of weight lifting equipment are so flexible that you can use them to build many different groups of muscles, unlike exercises like sit ups which focus only on your core.
Types of Weight Lifting Equipment
There are two basic types of weight lifting equipment that you can choose from:
Free weights: Free weights are individual weights that can be added in any different combination or amount to empty bars. Free weights are the most traditional form of weight lifting equipment you can use. They are flexible and can include tools like medicine balls. When using free weights at home or at the gym, make sure that you have a spotter in place. If you lift weights that are too heavy you could be injured. A spotter helps reduce the likelihood of injury.
Weight machines: Weight machines offer adjustable resistance to work out one group of muscles each. They take up more room than free weights and are more restrictive, but when used properly they help many weight lifters stave of injuries better than free weights.
Some new weight machines, like the BowFlex, now offer complete, whole body workouts all within one machine. This can make a home work out much easier and more effective and reduces the amount of room you must dedicate to your machines.
The Drawback of Weight Lifting Equipment
The most important drawback of weight lifting equipment is that it does not offer a sustained cardio workout to users. But this is easy to fix; simply pair your weight lifting equipment workout with a sustained walk or run on a treadmill that keeps your heart within its target rate. This will help make sure your cardiovascular system stays in good health and is able to meet the circulation demands of your increased muscle mass.
Before you embark on any exercise routine that does or doesn’t involve the use of weight lifting equipment, be sure to check with your primary care physician. He or she can make sure that you are in optimal health for such a workout and that it isn’t unhealthy for you.
