Weapons of FAT destruction?
By Rob Poulos
http://www.fatburningfurnace.com

A new one from my friend Rob,
Hope you enjoy it.
Lewis

Hi lewis,

In the war against unwanted body fat, one of the key factors that will determine your success relates to the exercise tools, or fat burning ‘weapons’ you have at your disposal.

I’d like to provide for you some of the pluses and minuses of the top two choices of equipment we can use in our resistance training efforts. After all, the minute you start thinking exercise machines are great, along comes someone telling you they’re junk.

And the minute you feel like f.ree weights are where it’s at, your buddy tells you how he threw his back out using f.ree weights. So let’s put some rumors to rest and get the real deal on these weapons of fat destruction we can arm ourselves with in the battle of the bulge.

This is another big topic, so I’m going to cover machines in this newsletter and tackle f.ree weights in the next one. Sound good? OK, let’s get started.

First off, let’s talk about exercise machines. For years in resistance training, all we had to work with were dumbbells and
barbells. Heck, I even started out using my grandfather’s old
rusty barbell set. So as man typically does, man set out to improve upon this with the use of exercise machines. And improve on them he did.

The major advantage to a good exercise machine is that it allows you to apply constant resistance to the full range of motion of an exercise. This is not possible with some f.ree weight exercises. Take the barbell c.url for the biceps for example.
At the top of this movement in the contracted position, all of the stress on the biceps is r.emoved.

Sure, you can squeeze your biceps hard and contract them here, but that’s nothing compared to applying severe resistance to the muscles like a good machine can. This allows you to work that third level of your strength (the static level) and the point of contraction, which I’ve discussed in previous tips. You just can’t properly work the top of this movement with f.ree weights.

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One other big advantage to machines is the ability to isolate a particular muscle group that, again, would be either impossible or downright dangerous to do with f.ree weights. How are you going to perform a leg extension for the quadriceps with f.ree weights? A pulldown without a pulldown machine? (Yes, I know you can do a chinup instead, but I think you get the idea).

Now, just like with anything else, there are some great machines out there, but also some decent ones and some quite crappy ones too. Out of all of the machines I’ve used over the past few years, the two top manufactures I’ve come across are Hammer Strength and Nautilus.

Both companies provide exercise machines that work your muscles over the entire range of motion consistently. The exercise is just as hard at the start, in the middle, and at the finish.
This is a very different feeling from the norm, and if you’ve never used these machines before you’re in for a fat burning and muscle, strength, and cardiovascular health building treat.

Now, I know not e.veryone has access to these machines, but your gym or fitness center still probably has a handful of good ones to use. And that brings up one of the only drawbacks of machines. Most are just not built for e.veryone in mind. Sure, there are settings for the seat height and other adjustments, but sometimes the movements can really feel un-n.atural.

If you’re trying out a new machine and just can’t get a good n.atural feel to the movement, make sure to adjust the settings if possible. If it still feels uncomfortable, ditch it and look for an alternative.

Alright, that gives you a good idea of what to look for in a good exercise machine. In part 2 of this topic, we’ll talk about the pluses and minuses of f.ree weights in our fat burning and fitness efforts.

By the way, if you want to fast track your fat loss, health and fitness success, you’ll want to read my Fat Burning Furnace eBook right now.

It took me years to learn all of the techniques and secrets I used to totally reshape my body, boost my energy, and develop lasting health…but you can download my eBook right now and discover them for yourself in just a few minutes here:

http://www.fatburningfurnace.com
 

Sincerely,
Lewis + Sarah
www.atozfitness.com
www.trainwithsarah.com