Preacher Curl

The following exercise works on your biceps. It's a great isolation exercise because your biceps are doing the work and it's hard to cheat and help using the back or the shoulders.

You should adjust the height of the preacher board such that you can put your armpits at the edge of the boards when comfortly seated.

Then you lift the barbel such that your arms are perpendicular to the ground. That's your starting point.

Then you lower the weight down *IN A CONTROLLED MANNER* until your arms are *almost* fully streched. You should not straighten your arms completely cause it's extremely hard to lift it from there. Also you don't let the weight throw your arms unless you want to rip the biceps tendon from where it inserts on the forearm bone which shall require a surgery and months of inactivity.

As a general rule - don't throw the weights, don't shake your body, don't overload and don't try to impress no one - cause no body cares. Size doesn't matter here. The trick is to work with less weight but in a perfect form.

Aviel.

How many sets and how many reps

Sets & reps... - these are the most common words that you are going to hear in the Gym.

What are reps and what are sets?

The word rep is a short for repetition and one rep is one complete movements of a particular excersise. For example in this picture I am doing flat bench press, that's the exercise, yes, yes - not FAT bench press - FLAT bench press and stop looking at my belly. 

ok so the movements that I am doing are... reps. For example I do 10 reps till I can't life no more, then I take a rest and then I do the whole thing again, and then I take another rest and I do the whole thing again. So we are talking about 3 sets x 10 reps. OK?

How many Reps?

So Question #1 that I was always asked in the gym was - 'how many reps?'.

There are three types here:

• those for strength.
• those for building muscle mass
• those for muscular shape and definition

If you want strength then go for low number of reps - say 3-6.

If you want muscle mass, you know to have nice big muscles - then do 7-10 

if you want to be lean such that people will see your muscles then either diet or do 15-25 reps...

I am going for the mass - as I explained - I want to be big and 'strong'... - so I am doing 10 reps. I select the weight such that I can do 10 reps for each and every set. I have a spotter such that in case I can't finish - the spotter helps me a little bit so I can squeeze a little bit more. Also the spotter is for safety - imagine what happens when you want to lift the barbell but you are exhausted... - it happend to me 25 years ago when I worked out in the Gym alone - there was no one there to spot me and I had to roll the heavy barbell over my chest to get rid of it.

How many Sets?

I am on the low side here - I do 3 high intensity sets per muscle group and then I move on. In 30-60 minutes I am out of the Gym and on with my life.

(please don't look at my belly)

Now there are many body builders, and I mean champion body builders that are exhausting their body with a system of 20 sets... - that's too much for me, I am not here to bloat my muscles out of proportion and I don't have time to spend in the Gym. I come to the Gym and I know that within an hour at most I am in the shower and I know I can have 2-3 such sessions per week and my body won't be depleted.

OK, one last picture - barbell curl - Actually I still have those muscles beneath the fat - don't you agree?

Aviel.

Why do I lift heavy weights if I want to lose weight?

Hi there,

Here's everything you wanted to know about Strength & Muscles.

The first question - 

Why?

Because on previous diets I avoided training for Strenght & Muscles and this is how I ended...

Terrible.... absolutely horrible - what a wreck of a man.

Here, take this one - 

 I look old, I look sick...

And this - 

 A man that can lean and rest his head on his wife... 

No!

This is not what I want!!

I am going to lose weight yes - but it's gonna be mainly fat, not muscles! A man should have muscles, a man should be big, thick, strong, intimidating, not a yellowish, vegetarian, skinny, glass wearing, intelligent wussy pussy.

And I am not going to train like a girl. That is I am not going to do the high-reps, low-weight deal - standing there like a shmock with 3 Kgs barbels in my hand and throwing it around - No! Not me!!

Seriously now, and girls - you better listen cause you have to follow the same routine, believe it or not.

When dieting our body has limited capacity to recover because it doesn't have enough calories to do so. If you do a light weights exercise then that's just like cardio for your body, it's an additional same-same attack on your body. Our body is a fascinating machine, when you throw at it a change it will try to slow down and if you don't need your muscles then it's going to be on the expense of your muscles.

You need to give your body a good reason to maintain the muscles and it means - you have to hit the gym and lift those weights.

One thing to remember though - I am on a restricted calorie diet, I can't add much muscles, the best I can hope for is preserving muscles. I am not going to become arnold schwarzenegger here - I am on a calorie restricted diet so my expectations are set accordingly - I am merely preserving my muscles here. If I start training for huge muscles then my body is going to collapse, it's gonna be injured, it's going to resist my efforts.

That's it,

Aviel.