Equipment

When it comes to equipment, "simplicity" is the best way to go.  The fitness industry, with its machine-packed clubs and devices, too often gets in its own way, and instead of educating those it seeks to help, presents a muddled picture.  Here I abide by the concept: less is more....  And Rule Number One is---Avoid Those Machines.  Why?  Because, though they look fancy and fill space in the club, machines don't address "functional movement." When reaching for the pot above the counter, you don't find an attached pulley guiding you in a specific direction. The weight is "free," requiring you to balance, direct, and guide it through "space."  As a result, you recruit and fire, not one but a set of muscles, working together, as opposed to a single muscle, isolated on a cable, pulley, or track.  Functional movement is "synergistic," translating to how we move in daily life.  

The old-fashioned push-up is a perfect example.  As opposed to sitting upright, your stomach relaxed, while pressing a lever, the push-up, beginning in plank position, recruits a spectrum of minor and major muscles.  To maintain "plank," toes must press through the surface, firing the hip flexors and, to a lesser degree, the lower quads....  Lumbar muscles "synergize"with the abs, preventing the pelvis from collapsing to the floor.  Meanwhile, the upper back and the shoulder girdle--the teres major and minor, the serratus, the lats, and the rhomboids--stabilize the trunk above the diaphragm.  The chest and arms work within a system "turned on" to facilitate movement.  And the floor that made it possible didn't cost a single dime....

This concept applies to all training with resistance.  Bench press, be it with an Olympic bar or individual dumb-bells, requires you to "balance" weight while raising and lowering it in exercise.   This "functional" movement translates to activities (to pushing a lawn-mower or making a tackle), more effectively than cable-guided, machine-based movement.  We've all seen the moron who loads the leg-press ten to a side, sits in the thing and, show notwithstanding, moves the rack an INCH.  This epitomizes futility.  Not only is he working from a non-functional position using supported weight, he's telling the gym he's more focused on pretending to be strong than actually getting there.  The benefit from this exercise, the strength-building component, derives exclusively from loading and unloading the apparatus.  

And the same holds true for other machines--curl, tricep, leg extension....--none of which is as effective as its free weight counterpart.  Here the adage "you get what you pay for" is turned on its head, for no other industry spends thousands of dollars to create the illusion of "essential technology," when, in fact, "weight" can't be improved.  A set of dumb-bells, capable of training every body part, costs a fraction of the machines, not a single one of which is half as effective, needed to duplicate its repertoire.  So, remember: "Free Weights" recruit muscle the way LIFE recruits muscle.  They're inexpensive, effective....  Use them, and pass through life: Steel Cut!

Next Blog: Movement Principles: Planes of Motion

 Makten, Steel....

A Word from Steel Cut Oats

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Bonzai.....

Steel Cut Fitness, a fit-lifestyle blog, is maintained and written by Greg Halvorson--a.k.a. Steel Cut Oats--a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Physical Therapy, where, in 1995, he earned a Masters Degree.  Halv, or Oats, as he is often referred, is a lifelong practitioner ( a word he learned in Grad School!) of functional movement, and has been known, when he checks into a hotel, to CARRY his wheel-less satchel, two-by-two, to the Upper Echelon (Excelsis Deo!) of Sweat.  This epitomizes his philosophy---move, keep moving and, given the nod, TAKE THE STAIRS!!  "Take the Stairs," in fact, is the name of his business, an "old school" enterprise, where the willing, and not so willing, see exertion, not as torture but a link to the past, a bridge to days when hominids chased dinner and, on occasion, became it. (Note: Caveman Fitness failed the focus group.) Where, ultimately, this leads, Greg cannot say, for he blogs without a net....  There exists no lodestar or Guiding Light to steward discipline.  Which is to say, he could wander, peregrinate and occasionally expound, when distracted, on marsupials, self-reliance, and mozzarella fondue.  Let not it be said that a well-written segue on practically any topic won't crunch the abs!  Humor, advice, and an offspring with ad revenue in the high six figures--hell, make it seven!--are integers of an equation whose sum isn't known.  That said, Oats, in both 3rd and 1st Person, promises to teach, advise and, in the end, promote HEALTH, all in the spirit of science and fun.  

Makten, Steel