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Fitness Author, Karon Karter
The Multi-Muscle Machines: Minimize Your Workout Time - Maximize Your Strength
Weight training is good for you! While getting bone-building benefits, you’re fueling your metabolism, polishing your posture, and keeping your body strong at the same time. So, why haven’t you hit the weights?
Because somewhere between tight work schedules, company reports, and car pools, you sneak exercise whenever and wherever you can. Slipping into a spin class or taking a jog is so much easy than waiting your turn to pump iron. So, if you can’t find the time or the inspiration to fight the weight room crowds, we got the perfect solution: a group weight training class.
Not any old pumping iron class, but a FreeMotion weight training machines so sleek, and fun that they take the “Rep’s” out of repetitious!
Immediately upon check in, one thing becomes obvious. Weight training is no longer a man’s world as women rule in this class! Women, such as Natalie Church, 30, say that, “I love the class atmosphere versus working out alone because a lot of my girlfriends attend; it is just fun. I’ve seen better results with FreeMotion and now I’m looking forward to getting my body back after the birth of my baby girl.
Debra Schudde, 32, agrees. “I’ve done conventional weights and like FreeMotion better because it imitates the same movements I use in real life – like bending, reaching, pulling, and stretching.
The attraction about FreeMotion is that the sixty-minute class is geared towards all levels of exercises, and in those sixty minutes you’ll strengthen just about every muscle in your body. Yet before this workout can begin, you’ll have to get acquainted with a massive apparatus, called the “Tower.” Our instructor, Donna Fisher, 32, took a few minutes to explain how to set the weights, attach the straps and secure the brake so the “Tower” doesn’t run away from you.
After that, much of what we did in a FreeMotion weight class is similar to the exercises done in a weight room – reps, squats, and lunges – but with a twist, literally. As we transitioned from exercise to exercise, we focused on strengthening the body as a “whole” and spinal rotation-moves that any serious golfer or tennis player would recognize.
Keep in mind that all of these exercises were done in a standing position. For that reason, multiple muscles were hit and so were the core muscles keeping the body steady. Take standing bicep curls.
After completing a few reps, we added a series of squats to those bicep curls and then finished with a more difficult combination of biceps curls and one-legged squats. Donna says, “The biggest difference between a FreeMotion class and conventional weight training is that my students constantly move during the entire class, working all major muscle groups in flexion, extension, and rotation while using the same piece of equipment. Fit-pros have been plugging, “functional fitness – meaning fitness that simultaneously strengthens the core” the muscles of the abs, back, hips, and pelvis, and just about every other muscle in the body.
Experts are realizing that if you ignore the core, you’re setting yourself up for many problems in life. David Jorgens, director of personal training at the Premier Club, says, “FreeMotion is the perfect cross between free weights and stationary (conventional) equipment. FreeMotion provides enough resistance to achieve greater results in strength of the larger muscles, creates a challenge for stabilizing muscles surrounding the joints used in motion, and strengthens the core muscles that stabilize the spine. This creates safety and efficiency of movement in everyday life and in all sports.”
Think about it: the core in conjunction with multiple muscle groups help you perform many tasking chores during the day – from cradling a baby while assembling a baby stroller to lugging your briefcase while searching for a ringing cell phone. Most of this strength begins with the “core” because it supports the entire musculature.
Take walking: As you take a step, it is the muscles in your back, abs, hips, pelvis, and legs that propel you forward. These muscles, when aligned correctly, help buffer the impact to the joints. If, say, the muscles in your hip are weak, then you may walk with the pelvis tucked underneath you, which puts extra pressure on your lower back. A strong core keeps your hips and pelvis in place, reducing strain on the lower back; a strong core supports the spine; a strong core can lessen strain on the delicate shoulder joints, decreasing the work load on injury prone shoulders.
Overall, a strong core improves posture and keeps the spine healthy, which may help beat the back blues one day. Best of all, you’ll have a tighter, trimmer mid-section!
FreeMotion was designed to strengthen more muscle fibers while simultaneously challenging your balance; it’s an integrated approach to strengthening your body for life’s demands. Everett Aaberg, director of personal training for the International Athletic Club Management, says, “The unique feature about FreeMotion is that it allows my students to apply progressive resistance forces to their bodies at every angle possible. This empowers them to train virtually any muscle, in all planes of motion in a standing position.”In other words, traditional weight machines tend to focus on one muscle group at a time. Let’s take that standing bicep curl again. After eight reps of standing bicep curls, you may add a hamstring curl. Not only will you strengthen the working hamstring, but the supporting leg, the core muscles, and bicep muscles at the same time. On a traditional weight machine, you often use a bench to support the body while doing that same hamstring curl.
When it’s all over, you will feel like you’ve work those out of sight out of mind muscles. It’s apparent that all this core work – and exercises that mirror the body’s true movements are here to stay. “FreeMotion,” says Scotty Esquibel, Group Exercise Director of the Cooper Aerobics’ Center, “is the most exciting innovation to come around in years; my students love it.” Art Daboub, a student of FreeMotion, says, “It’s a good all-around training.”
So, for those of you suffering from a time-crunch or find the weight room insufferable, this class minimizes your workout time and maximizes your strength – and it’s a painless pursuit to good-looking abs.
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