Jennifer Morris, MD MBA
ABPN, ABOM, ABPM-add, ABSSP
Weight lifting, as mentioned in the previous post, can maintain or even improve bone density in the context of weight maintenance and weight loss. This "skinny outside, overweight inside" condition can be harmful, as it lulls an individual into believing they are healthier than they might be. Weight loss by itself is INSUFFICIENT to promote health. If appearance is the primary goal, well...it doesn't look as good either.
While not everyone's goal is to get cut, losing body fat while maintaining muscle mass and bone density is important. Three barriers often lie in the way:
1. No time...society is getting busier and busier, with more crammed into each day. Squeeze one more thing into my schedule, and I think I'm going to derail. However, lifting does not have to be a giant time drain. With a few hand weights and small chunks of intermittent time, weight lifting can be accomplished. Places I have fit lifting into my schedule:
A. While watching kids sports. Many of the gyms my kids participate in have a small area (or, at the school, a large area) with free-weights. 15 minutes is all it takes to get a brief arm or leg workout in. That's two opening drills in basketball practice world.B. Also while watching kids sports...I have the set of weight below (which I have been dying to show off...if you've been to my office lately you will see a set camped there.) As it is a multi-weight set, I don't have to have a stack of hand-weights. These fit easily into the trunk of my car, and offer the opportunity to have a convenient set of weights to sneak some lifting in. This has occurred at baseball practices, at indoor practices that DON'T have weights available, during voice lessons, during cheer practice, etc.
C. while reading...I read a LOT of journal articles to keep current. Lifting is easily accomplished while reading; I can read during or between sets.
2. Few resources...you don't need a fancy gym or membership to engage in weight lifting. While machines can be a nice addition, a small amount of hand-held free-weights can go a long way towards building muscle and bone density. Start with a couple of 5 and 10 pound dumbbells and move up as you progress, or with a selector set like the one pictured in section 1. While this strategy won't set you up for the IWF (international weight-lifting federation, for the uninitiated), it will promote good health.
3. No knowledge...intimidation can be a significant factor when beginning lifting, with good cause: do it wrong and you can get legit hurt. Most injuries are attributable to bad form, too much weight, no warm-up, or previous injuries. Investing in a personal trainer for a couple of sessions may be beneficial to begin a weight-lifting endeavor (more on ideal trainers in a later post.) If that is not feasible, consider leveraging the expertise of a friend or colleague with familiarity with lifting...almost every weight-lifting person is excited to share their knowledge.
I'm leaving you with a link for a 5 minute workout (copy and paste into your favorite browser) for arms, using a single set of hand-weights or dumbbells. While the clip advertises itself as a 5 minute complete workout, I love sets of three reps for lifting exercises, with a small warmup before and a bit of a stretch after, so this is probably closer to a 15-18 minute workout for arms. It can be done in segments as your day's time alots...ie I often do the curl sets during lunch before I eat, and the rest later to break it up a bit (some days I just don't have the 15-18 minutes to get it in all at once), but you could do a 5 minute round at different times of the day to get it in.
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