Going to the gym is intimidating enough, but not knowing how to pick the right weight to use for an exercise can make a novice’s trip to the gym even more uncomfortable. If you grab too light of a weight, you’ll feel you wasted your time, while too heavy of a weight can lead to injury.

But it is very important to grab the right weight. In a 12-week long study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers found that subjects gained the most strength when using a weight that corresponded to 70% of their 1 repetition maximum (meaning 70 % of the heaviest weight they could lift in the exercise).

During my recent talks in Bellaria Italy, a theme developed which reflects what I consider to be a problem in the way that most people think about resistance training. In particular, during one roundtable discussion on EDT training, I fielded numerous questions about the so-called “correct” number of sets, reps, rest duration, etc., etc., for EDT workouts.

Finally, I saw the underlying problem behind the various questions I was fielding: the attendees were focusing too much on the means of optimal weight training and not enough on the ends. As I thought about it, virtually ALL resistance training systems and philosophies focus on means, often to the total exclusion of the ends…

If I had to summarize the 3 most common resistance training mistakes (or to put it more kindly, inefficiencies) that people are guilty of during their workouts, my “terrible triad” could be summed up in a single sentence: “Slow, isolation lifts performed on machines.” Let’s take a look at each of these 3 components one at a time:

Jackson Winning Shows A Fundamental Shift In Judging

As those of you who follow such things probably already know, Dexter Jackson won the Mr. Olympia this past weekend in Vegas. I don’t follow who wins what much these days, but Dexter winning “The O” shows a fundamental shift in the judging criteria, where big blocky physiques - often accompanied by big bloated guts - were put in the top spot.

Bodybuilders have long known that if you eat too little for too long, you can actually decrease your resting metabolic rate (the number of calories you burn at rest).  

Now, scientists are catching up to what our muscle-building friends have known in the real world for a long time. Researchers from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisana studied long term dieting in 48 normal-weight subjects. 

The Science Behind Brevity Training

A few months ago I released a book whose title was more reminiscent of a line out of “There’s Something About Mary” than a serious work on fitness. “7 Minute Muscle” — yep, it’s getting more and more difficult to distinguish fact from parody.

Here’s another scary article on the “dangers” of bodybuilding from the BBC.

Every time I see an article like this, I have a Pink Floyd flashback. 

Now you’d think, in an age where obesity rates for young people are skyrocketing, that the ”experts” would be applauding these young men…they want to be fit and look good - what’s wrong with that?!  Pumping iron sure beats the hell out of sitting slackjawed in front of the tube.  Rather than clutching their pearls and getting the vapors over teenaged boys ”…losing some of their innocence”, these “experts” should be working with them to make sure that they have their diets straight, and don’t overtrain or injure themselves.

And - needless to state - they should be encouraging teenaged girls to hit the gym too!

The “Health” section of the BBC News web site is my browser home page, so it was impossible to miss this headline: “Bodybuilder scarred from steroids.”

Hoo-boy…here we go again…

Anyone considering using steroids to bulk up may want to think again after seeing pictures of the horrific scars suffered by one young bodybuilder.

German doctors were shocked at the extent of the massive, deep ulcerating sores on the chest and back of the 21-year-old man.

After antiseptic and antibiotic therapy the wounds healed but left permanent scars, The Lancet reported.

You might want to pause before clicking that link, btw…the pics aren’t very pretty.