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Types of Exercise
Taken from Variables for Weight Lifting and Exercise © 2003 Anthony Sell - All Rights Reserved
Resistance exercises, simply put, include any method of exercising the body or part of the body using a type of resistance to produce fatigue and thereby growth. This resistance can be natural (such as the body's weight in relation to gravity), machined (such as the type produced by exercise machines via pulley, gears, levers, and tension), or augmented (as with free weights and simple exercise devices).
Natural resistance can be used to develop body attributes including strength, and endurance, flexibility and speed. Exercises such as Pull-ups and Chin-ups, Sit-ups and similar abdominal exercises, Push-ups, Dips, Lunges and Squat Bends are considered Natural Resistance exercises, using only the weight of the body and gravity as resistance. Plyometric and Isometric exercises, Static and Dynamic Tension Drills are also considered Natural Resistance exercises.
These exercises are excellent for the novice athlete in order to develop a stable base for muscular development. For the advanced athlete, these exercises do not really offer enough resistance or intensity for significant gain, but can be a method for daily maintenance and body shaping. The best part of course being that they are free, requiring little or no equipment to perform.
Free weights are the most readily available forms of weightlifting equipment. The benefits of free weights include the cost (significantly cheaper than purchasing exercise machines), and the flexibility you have with which to design and specialize exercises.
The most limiting factor of Free weights is the type of Bench that you have to use. Since Free weights work with gravity, there are a number of exercises where the weight will need to be raised and lowered above the body. It is very important to have a bench that will allow you to do this safely and with enough variety to get a proper workout, and a spotter to watch you when you are fatigued.
Dumbbell (single hand bars often used in pairs) and Barbells (two-handed bars often used with bench supports) are the most common devices for holding weights, though there are specialized forms of these such as the EZ Curl Bar, Tricep Bar, Bicep Bar, Squat Bars, etc. Each of these specialized bars are designed to facilitate proper form based on the needs of each type of exercise.
Machines are designed specifically for each muscle group action, allowing a focused repetition along a guided track. Machines call for less use of the stabilizing muscle groups (the muscles involved with balancing the weight along the path of repetition) which allows a greater focus on the target muscle group.
Machines are also designed to hit the major muscle group with little or no aid form the muscle groups (for example a chest workout that does not employ the forearms or triceps cannot be done without the use of a machine). Exercise machines can also increase and decrease the resistance within the course of each repetition. This will allow the muscle to be taxed more where it is stronger and less where it is not.
It is important to remember that the use of muscles other than the focus group will cause an accelerated fatigue. So work that is done with dumbbells will require the expenditure of more energy than the use of a barbell, which requires even more stabilizing energy than with a machine.
Ideally, the progression should go from the exercise that requires the least amount of stabilizer activity to the exercise that requires the greatest amount of stabilizer activity, so as to exhaust the focus muscle group before the stabilizers.
Another type of exercise is Aerobic Exercise. Aerobic exercise taxes the muscle's use of oxygen by calling for the body to put forth a greater supply. This causes the heart to beat faster pulsing more blood to the muscles in use, also increasing the pace of breathing to intake more oxygen for the body to use. Exercises that use a large number of muscle groups or the whole body in the movement are considered Aerobic exercises.
Weightlifting can be maintained with an Aerobic focus (or an Anaerobic focus also), and will be discussed later. Anaerobic exercise has to do with the two other systems that your body uses when exercising (both of which will be discussed later).