grr: gym teacher rant

TheCenturion

TheCenturion

TheCenturion

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18 Mar 2008
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For the last 3 or 4 weeks, on mondays, at school I've had a fitness training class. The teacher makes us do an hour's work, he wants us to do half an hour cardio, half an hour weights.

The problem I have with the weights room is that there is only one bench, and everything else is a machine, plus a pull up bar.

The teacher said at the beginning of the first session, talking about weights:

"You should only use the machines. You should have the correct form. You want light weights, with high reps. What you are looking to do is to tone and build your muscle, to isolate each muscle on the machines."

So, my rant could go on, but is there anything I can do in that 30-60mins that would be worthwhile? So far, on the odd occasion that teh bench is free, I've done some 16kg benching with 8kg dumbbells, and some chin ups.

Thanks :)
 
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Bench Dips?
Incline Press Ups
One legged Squats (with your foot behind you on the bench)
Step Ups
Seated DB Shoulder Press with no backrest

Plus numerous standing DB exercises.
 
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There's plenty of bodyweight stuff you can do :)

Prisoner Lunges
Dynamic Lunges
Clockwork Lunges
Single Leg Squats (as stated)
Plyometric Lunges
Squats
Plyometric Squats (evil)
Monk Squats (also evil)
Pressup
Plyometric Pressups
Monkey Pressups (moving from side to side over a raised object, ie step)
Single Arm Wall Pressups
Chinups (arguable the best Uback exercise)
Prone Rows (use a smith machine or low bar of any sort to perform a row, raising the body off the floor from a supine position)
Pike Shoulder Press
Plank
Side Plank (add raises, reach unders etc)
Oblique twists (add a dumbell)
Vsits
Deadbugs
Tuck Jumps
Skipping (Bring your own rope if necessary)
Burpee Pressups (add a starjump)

And that's without using medicine balls, swiss balls, Bosu Balls, Dumbells etc

Is there not a PT there? Ask them. Regardless, as a younger chap the school is limited and can only prescribe higher rep (muscular endurance) work. His wording and knowledge may be pap, but he's operating within the bounds of government stipulation.

Ant :cool:
 
As above bodyweight exercises will be your best bet, do some sort of circuit and hit all the muscles.

How heavy do the dumbells go? You could easily do dumbell squats/deadlifts/lunges/standing dumbell press/lateral raises/floor press etc.
 
To be honest that sounds reasonable to me. The guy probably doesn't know a great lot about training and it'll be him that gets the grief if one of you busts yourselves up following a "GO HEAVY OR GO HOME" lifting style. One lesson a week just do what he says/ use it as a free lesson and train how you want outside of school :)
 
anant_shah94 said:
The teacher said at the beginning of the first session, talking about weights:

"You should only use the machines. You should have the correct form. You want light weights, with high reps. What you are looking to do is to tone and build your muscle, to isolate each muscle on the machines."
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Oh man your Gym Teacher is one of those guys.

Light weight at high reps will NOT give you tone. It will just hamper your progress. It's the biggest misnomer preached in the bodybuilding community.
To gain muscle you need to lift heavy and eat well. A good quote from bodybuilding.com:

Performing high repetitions with light weights increases muscular endurance, but does not increase muscular definition. Following a healthy nutrition plan and performing cardiovascular exercise increases muscular definition.

You don't gain muscle by lifting heavy weights, you gain muscle by recovering from lifting heavy weights. If you lift light weights, you're not going to be sufficiently working your muscles to the point where they can grow back bigger and stronger.

Chin ups are a fantastic exercise. Infact, a lot of great exercises don't require weights at all. Pullups, chinups and dips are fantastic exercise which work a whole range of the upper body.

Most machines are a waste of gym space tbh.

Apart from that (i'm no where near as experienced as some of the guys here), stick to the compound exercises tbh.
 
exhashdotdot said:
You don't gain muscle by lifting heavy weights, you gain muscle by recovering from lifting heavy weights. If you lift light weights, you're not going to be sufficiently working your muscles to the point where they can grow back bigger and stronger.
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That's good news then!

I usually cant lift my toothbrush into my mouth for two mornings after training my biceps. That must mean I'm spending a lot of time recovering. :cool:
 
asim18 said:
That's good news then!

I usually cant lift my toothbrush into my mouth for two mornings after training my biceps. That must mean I'm spending a lot of time recovering. :cool:
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Some people say it can take up to 10 days for your muscles to fully recover from a good session. Personally for me, I make sure I work each part of my body sufficiently once or twice a week (at the most).

Like I said previously, I'm most definitely still a novice, but my inner geek pushes me to become more and more versed in hobbies I take part in. It definitely works for me, progress is very good.
 
When I first stated out I used to read and read and read. Any article to do with bodybuilding and I'd be there ploughing through the bs. I still read interesting articles and studies but to be honest once you get to a certain point you realise 99% of the stuff is for extreme novices or just trying to sell you something. What works for you works for you, and although its great to share the only way to really learn in this game is trial and error.
 
dun said:
When I first stated out I used to read and read and read. Any article to do with bodybuilding and I'd be there ploughing through the bs. I still read interesting articles and studies but to be honest once you get to a certain point you realise 99% of the stuff is for extreme novices or just trying to sell you something. What works for you works for you, and although its great to share the only way to really learn in this game is trial and error.
Click to expand...

I think one of the first things I learnt is to take peoples' advice with a pinch of salt.

If I 100% believed everything I've been told over my first year of lifting I'd still be using the butterfly machine and squatting in a smith machine.
 
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