Free weights are among the best tools available for sculpting your perfect body and have been around for a very long time. The ancient Greeks, famous for having the most perfect physiques in history, used weights. Ancient paintings depict their athletes doing early versions of weight lifting exercises using rocks and other rudimentary weights.
Despite such an impressive pedigree, free weight training still suffers from a couple of misconceptions today, and this article will try to put them to rest.
The first myth that persists is that using weights will turn one into a huge bodybuilder or the Incredible Hulk. "I don't use weights because I don't want to get too bulky," is a line I hear frequently.
The truth is that developing a bodybuilding physique doesn't just happen by accident. That kind of body takes years and years to develop. You'd need to train with heavy weights for hours every day, and consume enormous amounts of food and supplements to look like that. Maybe even steroids too. So please forget any fears (or illusions) about turning into a bodybuilder overnight.
The second idea that never seems to die is that if you train with weights, your muscles will turn to fat when you get older. Again, this is untrue. Muscle and fat are completely different types of tissue. One cannot turn into the other any more than lead can turn into gold.
Yes, some people who were in good shape lose muscle and gain fat as they get older, but this is invariably because they stopped exercising and started eating badly. Those bad habits would have make them end up like that anyway; it has nothing to do with whether they once lifted weights!
Look at it this way: People who win the lottery sometimes do stupid things with their money and end up as penniless as they were to begin with. But is that the money's fault? Does that mean winning the lottery made them broke? Imagine someone saying, "I don't want to be rich because if I lose my money one day then I'll be poor!" If that sounds stupid, that's because it is. The idea that muscles turn into fat is the same kind of faulty logic.
Let's talk now about the amazing versatility of weights. Many people don't realise this, but weights have a variety of applications, only one of which is "getting big." I like to think of weights as an artist's tools. You can use them in several ways, depending on the effect you want to achieve. Just like a sculptor uses a whole spectrum of mallets, chisels, rasps and sandpaper during his work, you should employ the right kind of weight training at the right time.
One type of weight training is excellent for burning off fat. These exercises boost your metabolism and consume an enormous number of calories, stripping fat from your body and making you become trimmer. Another kind is excellent for adding some size strategically. This kind of training is best for when you want to make a particular body part bigger so that your body as a whole is perfectly proportioned. And there's a third kind of weight training which is great for polishing the muscles, putting the finishing touches on your look.
I really suggest you start to think of your body as a work of art, and free weights as the tools you use to create it. When you get into that sort of mindset, you'll realise how silly some of these myths are. You'll also come to appreciate that no single type of weight training will be perfect forever. It depends what your specific aims are, and what stage your "sculpture" is in.
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Dr. Nick Hallale, PhD in chemical engineering and creator of the Apollo Program, a system for developing the ideal physique of an ancient Greek athlete. Want to transform your body? Visit us at http://www.Apollo-Program.com
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