WHAT
TYPE OF EQUIPMENT IS NEEDED TO BEGIN TRAINING?
Barbell, Dumbells, Expanders
Kent Fischer - 31 December 2008
You can begin your physical
training with just free exercises utilizing your own body
weight. Eventally you can add a jump rope and some chest expanders
and spring
devices. From there progress to an adjustable barbell and dumbbell set. Eventually
though, you will want to gravitate toward some of the equipment found
in many gyms.
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Magazines are full of gadgets, each offering something
unique, in it’s own way, and covering a specialized
niche. What you want to do in the beginning, is stick with the basics. As stated before, you will want a good high quality barbell
bar made of strong steel. There are straight
bars and EZ bars. Also
special bars made for triceps work. A
Olympic weight lifting
bar would also be good for the beginner. Made sure you have plenty of 1 ¼ and
2 ½ lb
plates as these small
incremental adjustments are the keys to your progress. Adding too much weight will slow your
progress down. Stick with 1 ¼ lb increments.
For beginners, a cavet is needed. Olympic bars are thicker than regular
bars. Be sure that when you buy your weights, the
holes will fit properly on the bars. Olympic plates will fit too loosely on
regular bars, and regular plates won't even fit on Olympic bars.
Also some plates are plastic with cement inside and don't last as long as
iron. The plastic ones have a tendency to crack. Stick with iron.
You’re going to need a ceiling
about 8 feet high so you can lift the weights overhead. With a
adjustable dumbell set, you can vary your barbell
workouts, occasionally with dumbbell workouts.
If you don’t have a high ceiling, don’t let that hold you back.
In many ways dumbbells
are superior to barbells.
You have to balance them when holding them separately in each hand. A
suggestionif you have a low
ceiling, is perhaps to set
something up outside. If you are lucky enough to be a home owner, you might have a garage, or even one of those
garden sheds, where you can keep a spare
barbell. It would be used only for those few exercises requiring you to lift something
overhead. You couldmount a
chinning bar outside.
If all else fails stick to the free exercises, jump
rope, and cable expanders.
These will promote excellent results.
There are three
types of expanders. The steel type is heavy, cold to the touch, and will give
you a good pinch if you make the mistake of going shirtless. The
solid rubber
type is prone to cracking where the
cable attaches to the handle and therefore needs to be
replaced. It’s advantage is it can stretch farther. The rubber strand with the
cotton sheath lasts longer, because the
rubber is not exposed to the open air. It will not
stretch as far as the plain rubber, but is the most
popular and probably the best buy.
There are also attachments and stirrups you
can get which allow you to duplicate many barbell and dumbbell
exercises with the cables and
springs. There are specialized spring crushers, hand
developers, and other devices to add variety.
There are also abdominal boards, squat stands, benches,
power racks, etc. but stick with the
barbells, dumbbells, cables, and free exercises for the first year. Then you will be ready for the advanced
equipment.
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