I'm going to add some things I forgot to mention here (http://hardcorephysiologyfun.blogspot.com/2009/06/approaches-to-resistance.html). The main thing I was going to mention is that the idea is to choose a weight that allows one to exhaust the muscle group at 8-10 repetitions per set. It doesn't work to decide to do 10 repetitions in a set and then stop at 10, assuming one can do more. The repetitions should, furthermore, really be the 1-1000-2-1000 type of 2-second eccentric phase of the repetition (that amount of time for the lowering of the weight), and it's also best to pause for a split second at the maximum and minimum of each repetition. That ensures that there isn't a bouncing or other abnormal force exerted on the muscle group or tendons or ligaments, etc. The concentric phase of each repetition (lifting the weight) can just be any length of time. I just lift the weight without thinking about it, and I try to adhere to the 1-1000-2-1000 eccentric phase as much as I can without becoming overly-concerned that each repetition is perfect. Also, I try to count the repetitions in my head but don't worry if I lose count. Why don't I worry? That's a little joke, but the point is that one should always go to exhaustion on a set (do as many repetitions as one can). That doesn't mean that it should or will be painful or unpleasant. When the sets get too short, as discussed below, the sets do become unpleasant, though, and start to make the workouts become burdensome. That's counterproductive in the long term (and short term). If the sets are 7-10 repetitions, they won't be likely to be unpleasant or "painful" (or burdensome, rather, or awkward).
The best way I've found to gradually increase the weight on a given muscle group (and this should always be the goal, in the long term) is not to increase the weight and do labored sets of 5 or 6 repetitions. That just doesn't seem to work. I don't know why it's the case, but the better (and the actually-effective) way is to do more repetitions on a weight that produces exhaustion at 8-10 repetitions. As the exhaustion of the muscle group starts to require 12-14 repetitions or something, on some of the sets, I've found that that's the time to increase the weight and do a couple of the sets on that higher weight. "*THAT'S* that time I make my move." I'm joking with that, and this isn't rocket science. But that is an important point, because doing labored sets of 5 or 6 sets just makes for an unpleasant workout. One has to be patient and do a couple more repetitions on a given weight, for some of the sets, on each workout. It might take a couple of weeks to be able to increase the weight, and the progress becomes slow, after a certain point. The idea is to do maybe 4 or 5 different exercises per workout and do at most 7 or 8 sets per exercise. I gradually decrease the weight, throughout the workout, to allow myself to do sets of 7-10 repetitions, ideally. One can't always plan things or predict how many sets or repetitions one will be able to do on a given day, etc. "When I step in to that gym, I never know WHAT'S going to happen. Never know WATT-SUH gonna happen." This type of posting sounds like something out of an Arnold Schwarzenegger motivational video (I think it was called "1980's-Venice-Beach-Oblivion"), but many people don't make much progress at all in the gym and do sets of 4 repetitions, etc. It just doesn't work well, and I don't know enough about motor neurons and skeletal muscle physiology to know the reasons for that. I have read a great deal about this type of topic, though, and I feel the "sources" are essentially reliable. I was also going to mention that doing the lower back extension, or the back extension exercise, with the legs more or less straight is a bad idea, in my opinion. If a machine does not allow the knees to bend fairly significantly (as in the Nautilus version of it), it apparently puts a shear stress of some kind on the vertebrae or rather the connective tissue or intervertebral discs at some points in the range of motion. Also, this book I have discusses the fact that the knees shouldn't be brought too close to the chest on the leg press machines, because that can produce a stress of some kind on the lumbar vertebrae or connective tissue. Some authors make the argument that squats are safer than the leg press, given that there's some activation, when one is standing, as opposed to sitting, of the muscles involved in postural stabilization or of different proprioceptive neuronal pathways. But squats are also a very unnatural movement and look like they would be hard on the knees, and one has to remember, in my opinion, that supporting the weight on the shoulders is a very unnatural thing. There's no perfect leg press machine, but people sometimes need a few weeks to actually be able to do squats, apparently. That sounds bad to me. The leg extension, as I mentioned previously, is an especially bad exercise, in my opinion, that's very hard on the knees. In any case, as long as the knees aren't brought too close to the chest (and as long as one leans back as much as possible during the leg-press repetitions), there's supposedly less stress placed on the lumbar vertebrae. Also, when one thinks of something like the lower back issue in terms of everyday movements, the issue becomes clearer. One would never lean down, with the legs straight, and lift something with one's shoulders while keeping the legs more or less straight. The tendency would be to bend one's knees during the "Atlas" type of back extension. It seems to be the same in the context of the lower back machines. In any case, one would, as I mentioned in that past posting, want to discuss these types of issues with one's doctor.
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