Work out with weights; end your love affair with your scales

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 11/21/2007 11:32 AM  |  Life

Ade Rai is Indonesia's most famous bodybuilder and a passionate advocate of good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle. Every second week, he will be offering professional advice and answering your questions through this column.

Hi Ade Rai,

It is of great pleasure to know that a column devoted to fitness and health is now part of The Jakarta Post. During my one-year stay in Jakarta, I have often heard your name mentioned by fitness buffs.

Having been a polio victim, I have a weak right leg. I am 44 years old and used to work out four times a week in the Philippines under the supervision of a personal trainer. But now I train alone three/four times a week. I have been looking for an arm ergometer (a bicycle powered by the arms instead of the legs) in order to increase my cardiovascular activity. I am afraid of overusing my legs.

Do you have any idea where I can find such equipment? I would be very grateful if you could help me.

Yours in health and fitness,

Gilbert Viernes

P.S. Do you still accept personal training sessions? What days and times are you available?

Thank you for your kind words Mr. Viernes. You can find an ergometer through the sports equipment retail outlets in malls. However, I must emphasize to you the importance of continuing to use your leg muscles. I know you are scared of overusing them but -- and I am saying this without knowledge of your weekly routine -- I get the impression you are actually underusing your legs due to your physical circumstance.

If your left leg is still functioning normally, by all means you need to work your legs just as hard as you work your upper body parts. One leg accounts for approximately a fourth of your total body, so it's a lot of muscle groups to train.

I would suggest you do squats and use the lying leg press machine, followed by a few sets of leg extension and lunges. Please don't neglect your hamstrings or calves either.

I don't do any personal-training sessions myself, however I do train and certify personal trainers through the RAI Institute.

The benefits of a total body workout

Working out with weights is one of the best ways to improve your lean body mass, decrease the fat content of your body, maintain bone mass, and stimulate the metabolism even while at rest. However, with the limited time we have on our hands, we tend to work out only the muscle groups that are the most pleasant to train. This can put you at risk of developing dangerous imbalances between the front and back muscles.

First, training only certain body parts and neglecting others is one of the silent causes of injury. One case in point is training your abdominal muscles but forgetting to train your lower back. Many people opt to train their abs with various types of crunches. On one side, this is a great way to improve abdominal strength, however on the other side if you neglect to train the antagonist muscle (lower back), you will be increasing the risk of injury.

Second, by working some muscle groups more often because they are show muscles, you are subjecting those muscles to overtraining. When overtraining happens, those preferred muscles will no longer respond to your training. In essence, you will be wasting your time in the gym and getting counterproductive results.

By working the whole body, you are actually giving all your muscle groups equal recovery time. Not only will you get better and faster results from the limited gym time, but you will also be minimizing your chance of experiencing setbacks because of injuries.

Hello Mr. Rai,

I've been skinny since childhood. I'm 31 and have always weighed between 55-60 kilograms. Never more, never less. What is the healthiest way to gain weight so I can gain some mass?

(no name provided)

Thank you for your question. I was skinny too before I started bodybuilding. My weight was always between 55-60 kg with a height of 183 centimeters. So it is only natural for me to advise you with steps or strategies that worked for me.

First, you need to start working out with weights. The point being to stimulate muscle weight as opposed to stimulating fat weight. Then if possible, increase the frequency and portion of your meals, starting with adding more complex carbohydrates (grains, brown rice, oatmeal, brans, etc.) and proteins (lean red meat, chicken breast, tempeh, fish, yogurt, milk, or protein powder supplement). Third, you may need to go to bed at the exact same time every day and make sure you get enough sleep and rest to balance with your activities.

Although I never smoked in my life, in case you do smoke, you may want to consider quitting. Smoking kills your appetite and it is definitely not a healthy way to keep weight off. Another trick is to try taking the B-complex vitamins to work up an appetite.

Gaining body weight and how to measure it

As I mentioned before, our body weight consists of muscle weight, bone weight, water weight and fat weight. Out of all these weights, the most beneficial one to gain is muscle weight. The more muscle you have, the better your physical balance and overall health will be. You will also experience an increased metabolic rate, stronger physical functions, stamina and agility (doing more activities with better power output).

It is quite unnecessary to gauge your progress through the numbers when you step on a scale. Let me give you an example: If you weighed 70 kilograms a month ago, and you excitedly jumped on the scales today, hoping to see some improvement, and there was no change, it would probably be no big deal. Because you may have actually gained two kg of muscle and lost two kg of fat during that one-month period. If that was the case, you will probably have seen your body visibly improving and really shouldn't be disheartened. My advice is to change the scale habit by finding other ways to measure your progress.

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Have an exercise or diet question? Fire away via ask_aderai@yahoo.com

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