You can hardly turn on a television to any channel today without seeing one of those awful infomercials featuring one of those buff, semi well-known actors and super-sexy models touting one body weight resistance machine or another. They look right into the camera and claim that, with little or no effort at all, you too can look like they do (this statement is normally punctuated with a double biceps back pose or extreme close-up of the model’s legs). Some even claim to have been using a particular device for several decades, with phenomenal results, even though the thing is brand-new on the market. What is even more remarkable than these far-out sales pitches is the number of people who actually believe it and buy into it.

In today’s society people are used to having everything now, with little or no effort. In most situations that is a great philosophy: That is progress. But when it comes to building an impressive physique, the fact is that the old methods still rule — basically, it’s no guts, no glory. You cannot make huge gains in muscle mass without performing resistance exercises with weights and without using strict form. Naturally, it would be nice if we could get into shape and pack on huge slabs of muscle with little or no thought, by doing easy little movements with some neat little contraption that makes the process not just easy, but fun as well. But that is not likely to happen, at least not anytime in the near future, and if you’ve ever fallen for any of those slick infomercials or magazine ads, then you already know this to be true.

When first starting out on a fitness program, modest weight loss and even some small increase in muscle size can be had using body weight movements. The key words here, though, are modest and small. The fact is, when beginning with a blank slate almost any amount of exercising will produce positive results. But these gains will quickly peak and then stop as the body’s muscular structure and metabolism adjusts to the new activity, causing you to reach a plateau, or a level where no further gains are forthcoming. What causes a plateau is, basically, your muscles have grown as much as they need to grow in order to compensate for the amount of weight you are now lifting, and your metabolism has reached a balance where the amount of calories you are consuming is equal to the amount being burned per day. Consequently, everything is in balance: no more fat will be burned and no more muscle will be created.

The only way to get off that first quickly reached plateau and continue to make gains is to shock the body into further growth. This is accomplished by increasing the exercise intensity the muscles are subjected to. This cannot be done with simple body weight resistance exercises. The only way to get your motor running again is with the iron, or free weights. Choose tried-and-true movements like the bench press, barbell row, squat, deadlift, chin-up, overhead press, dips, and lunges. These are called compound movements, classic size builders that stimulate the major muscle groups and lots of muscle fiber. These exercises should be given priority in any beginning routine over such isolation movements as the dumbbell concentration curl, triceps pull-down, and leg extension, which target single muscles and are used mainly to get cuts in muscles that are already well developed.

Women should not ever shy away from working with the free weights out of fear that they will develop huge muscles. You won’t pack on serious bulk just by performing compound movements unless you are using heavy weights, high intensity, and feeding the muscles accordingly (having a high level of testosterone also helps). If you are on a weight loss routine and are not interested in getting big, don’t worry, these compound movements are still the best way to get toned-up and slimmed-down quickly. And if you are looking to build a seriously freaked-out physique, then compound movements with heavy weights is not only the best the way to go, it’s the only way to go.

Copyright © 2007 Davi Dietz - All Rights Reserved Worldwide.