Ditto... I'm on a break at the moment because my house is too far from the gym and I don't want to risk being flattened by an angry bus or cab by biking to it every day - and, perhaps more importantly, I'm too lazy to go out much in the cold and wet London winter.
But I'm planning to move soon, and one of my first priorities while moving will be to find a place close to a gym so I can start weight-lifting again. It does feel absolutely great, and the article is right - it's a scientific/experimentation endeavour. It took me 2 years to figure out how to make my body actually build muscle.
For the record, it turned out to be a combination of the following (and all these ducks needed to be lined up, which is why it took me so long to figure out the winning combination):
- Rely primarily on heavy Squats and Partial Deadlifts (which have to be done very carefully following good form to avoid injury - see http://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Tell-All-Handbook-Weight-Trai... for information) as my core exercises... if I don't do these two, the other weight lifting exercises don't build much muscle for me.
- Over-eat and particularly eat some protein shakes while training (need to ensure there's an abundance of foodstuff for my body to build new muscle)
- Make sure I get at least 8, ideally 9 hours of sleep every night - sleep deprivation == no new muscle tissue
- Train each major muscle group only 1.5 times a week - i.e. 3 times every 2 weeks. More often than that is actually counter-productive.
The benefit of doing all this is feeling fit, feeling great, feeling on top of things. I strongly recommend it to anyone (just make sure you follow safe exercise form - and don't necessarily trust the gym staff about that, I've seen many of them practice or even advise very poor exercise form that will cause injuries in the next 10-20 years).
But I'm planning to move soon, and one of my first priorities while moving will be to find a place close to a gym so I can start weight-lifting again. It does feel absolutely great, and the article is right - it's a scientific/experimentation endeavour. It took me 2 years to figure out how to make my body actually build muscle.
For the record, it turned out to be a combination of the following (and all these ducks needed to be lined up, which is why it took me so long to figure out the winning combination):
- Rely primarily on heavy Squats and Partial Deadlifts (which have to be done very carefully following good form to avoid injury - see http://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Tell-All-Handbook-Weight-Trai... for information) as my core exercises... if I don't do these two, the other weight lifting exercises don't build much muscle for me.
- Over-eat and particularly eat some protein shakes while training (need to ensure there's an abundance of foodstuff for my body to build new muscle)
- Make sure I get at least 8, ideally 9 hours of sleep every night - sleep deprivation == no new muscle tissue
- Train each major muscle group only 1.5 times a week - i.e. 3 times every 2 weeks. More often than that is actually counter-productive.
The benefit of doing all this is feeling fit, feeling great, feeling on top of things. I strongly recommend it to anyone (just make sure you follow safe exercise form - and don't necessarily trust the gym staff about that, I've seen many of them practice or even advise very poor exercise form that will cause injuries in the next 10-20 years).