I'm finding stuff in this book. It's aimed at pitchers, baseball pitchers, but I'm finding stuff in this book. Plenty of varied stuff on several lifting topics. Strength training and bodybuilding is dealt with.
Go Shinobu!
Here's a small excerpt on DB curling. The whole deal behind this book is asking yourself WHY you're doing what you do in the gym. There's much more in here of course, but here's a small excerpt on DB curling . . .
DUMBBELL CURLS:
There's a big difference between doing "hard curls" and "easy curls."
Irrational Strength Training - Dumbbell Curls. Using lots of momentum, moving the arms straight down to a position in which the elbows are fully bent in a single movement.
Logical Strength Training - Dumbbell Curls. Pull your elbows back as you lift the dumbbells. When you lower the dumbbells, move your elbows forward. Even if you use lighter dumbbells than what you would with "irrational" form, the load will be greater.
Dumbbell curls are usually one of the first exercises that people do when they want to get bigger arms or work on their biceps. I want to think about this from a bodybuilding standpoint . . .
Mush of your success in bodybuilding is determined by whether you are using a technique that effectively places a load on the muscle. In other words, a person who performs this exercise using the more demanding technique will build their biceps faster, while a person who uses the less demanding technique will build their biceps at a slower pace. The difference in the way you perform the exercise leads to a stark separation between the "logical" and the "irrational."
The key point that differentiates the more demanding technique from the easy technique is the positioning of the elbows.
Even if it's a bit more demanding, people who are conscious of fully engaging the biceps when raising dumbbells will often raise and lower them while moving their elbows back and forth. When they curls the dumbbells upward, they pull their elbows back slightly and raise the bells slowly. When lowering, they do it slowly while moving their elbows forward and stop the movement at the bottom with the dumbbells at an angle. See illustration.
This is a method that uses leverage principles -- it applies the load of the dumbbell to the biceps from the beginning to the end of the movement. Of course, your arms are going to burn like crazy, but the harder it is, the more efficiently you can train your biceps.
Now, what about the "irrational" easy version of this exercise?
It involves raising and lowering the dumbbells as if your goal was simply to move them back and forth from directly below your elbow to directly above your elbow. Of course, there is little or no load placed on the target muscles if you're holding the dumbbells straight down with your elbows extended. Likewise, if you raise the dumbbells to directly above your elbows, the weight is supported by the straight bones of your forearm, so there is very little load on the muscles.
Both the positions directly below your elbow and above your elbow act as "resting positions" in which your biceps take a breather.
That is to say, people who do the "easy" version just move the dumbbells from the resting position directly below to the resting position directly above. In addition, most people who employ this method often use exaggerated movement and momentum to swing the dumbbells in one quick motion from down to up. If you lift the dumbbell in a quick, jerking motion like this, the arms bear very little of the load and there are very few situations where lifting like this will actually stimulate your biceps. The epitome of irrational.
Again, dumbbell curls are a biceps workout. But what happens if you were to do this kind of "easy lift' on a regular basis? Naturally, your biceps will get little to no training, and you'll end up wondering why the hell you're even training with next to no gains at all.
[Now, consider all your other exercise movements, and the way you have chosen to perform them to build muscle and strength.
In addition, there are many people who fall into the "weight trap" when they do such irrational training.
You can lift super-heavy dumbbells that people around you may hesitate to lift, if you put a lot of effort into lifting them from directly below your elbow to directly above your elbow. The person who does this may feel fairly pleased as people around him look and say, "Wow, you can lift such heavy dumbbells."
But no matter how heavy the dumbbells you lift, what's the point of doing it if it's not training your muscles? If you want to make your biceps bigger, then using lighter weight dumbbells with more demanding form would provide a much more effective workout. Logical people use a form that considers how to avoid merely moving the dumbbells from directly below to directly above the elbow.
As I mentioned earlier, it is very easy to get carried away with arm training, and many people fall into the "weight trap" without even realizing it. In many cases, they lose sight of their original training objectives when they get caught up in the moment.
That's why I want you to go back to the basics of why you are doing this, and train without losing sight of your purpose or yourself.
The best way to shift from Irrational Strength Training to Logical Strength Training is to THINK ABOUT WHY YOU ARE DOING THIS.
Next: "Squeezing your butt" is the basis of lower body strength training. Plenty of stuff in this one.
Note: That reads "squeezing YOUR butt."
Enjoy Your Lifting!
