There are 2 schools of thought on how to do weight training. The first says use a light weight for a bunch of repetitions. The seconds says to use the heaviest weight you can lift for only 8-10 repetitions. I've been using the first method, but decided I wanted to try the second method to see what that felt like. On Tuesday I went to the gym and did all my usual moves but with much higher weights. It definitely worked; I was pretty sore all over afterward. Then the weirdest thing happened. That night, I couldn't stop sneezing, my nose and eyes were running, and I had a mild sore throat. I figured I was coming down with a cold and with the race in just a few days! Crap!
I went for a massage for my sore muscles the next day and the massage therapist told me it wasn't a cold. Just like getting a deep massage releases toxins that have been stored in your muscle tissue, the heavy lifting breaks down muscle fibers and dumps stored toxins into the body. My body was producing histamine in response to the toxins. That's why you're supposed to drink a ton of water after a massage, to wash the toxins out. The massage therapist theorized that if I drank a bunch of water it would wash out my system and eliminate the allergy-like symptoms, which in fact seems to be the case.
So wadda you know, I'm allergic to power lifting.
The "schools of thought" on weight training are not aimed at achieving the same results. You need to look at the results that you want. Although both methods will burn calories while lifting, they do fundamentally different things to the muscles themselves. It has to do with building lean, slow-twitch muscle fiber or building the bulkier fast-twitch muscle fiber. Both kinds will burn fat, but exercise routines aimed at slimming down generally tend to shy away from focusing on the heavy weight and low repetition method; however, no matter what the goal, one must vary the focus and routine of workouts to avoid the plateau effect. As a great kick for starters, I recommend a combination squat thrust, power clean, and shoulder press with dumbells. It definitely boosts your heart rate.
ReplyDeleteOh I know the difference, just didn't take the time to explain it in my post. I'm doing lots of reading and learning. I was just curious to try really heavy weights. I'm going back to building lean muscle next time.
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