Thursday, October 16, 2008

Fast Lifting for Maximal Strength and Fat Loss

Hubbard Training Systems uses the most effective training techniques to enhance your strength, health, and performance. One of our tools is Olympic barbell lifting. Why? Because they are an extremely efficient (and safe, if you have good coaching) method of training. Here are several reasons why they work much, much better than that program you found in Shape or Active Trax.

  • Greater recruitment of stabilizing muscles. In order to lift the barbell overhead you need great stability of the torso and shoulder. These lifts will strengthen and develop these stabilizer muscles better than most crazy, unsafe "ab" exercises.
  • Greater strength gains. When required to move a (heavy) weight fast, you will recruit many more muscle fibers or motor units (the nerve and the muscle fibers it controls) than the same weight, slower. In fact, some motor units won't even work unless you move fast!
  • Greater metabolism and fat burning. Yes, contrary to what most would think. But, now there is increasing scientific research to show that fast (heavy) lifitng stimulates your metabolism to a greater extent during and after your workout than slow movements
  • Greater carry-over to everyday activities. Your body inherently moves and lifts more efficiently with a fast rate of contraction. Think about it, when you lift a child, do you do it quickly or take three seconds?
  • Efficiency. Use one exercise to train just about all of the muscles in your body. Sounds great to me. Now, no one has an excuse for not working out.
  • Fun. This is the thing most clients mention. They enjoy and get a lot of satisfaction out of lifting this way. They look forward to breaking their personal records. It keeps them and myself very motivated.
  • Challenge. No one picks up a barbell and performs these exercises well or even fair their first time. In fact, it takes a while to master them. Because there is strength, skill, coordination, and flexibility involved you don't see many people performing these lifts. I definitely feel proud that I can perform these lifts better than just about everyone who walks into the gym.
Start Olympic lifting and see your strength, health and performance all dramatically increase. Below two of my clients, Christy and Linda perform some Olympic lifting. Even though these are lighter weights by Olympic Weightlifting standards, they were still lifting more weight overhead than all of the other females in the gym that morning!






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