Experiment with the angle of the bench, especially for chest exercises.
Inclining the bench a few degrees allows you to work the muscle fibers of
your upper chest. (But attempting chest exercises at too high an angle
can put your shoulder joint in jeopardy.) Declining the bench emphasizes
your lower chest. You can use a slightly different angle each workout if
you want.
Use a bench for support. When you’re doing overhead lifts or bicep
curls, adjust the seat so it’s upright, and sit snugly against it. This posi-
tion protects your back and prevents you from cheating. You won’t be
able to rock your body back and forth to build momentum to hoist the
dumbbell. You have to rely solely on the muscle power of your biceps.
However, you’ll still have to stop yourself from arching the small of your
back off the bench when the weight gets heavy.Use weight-lifting benches for one activity only: lifting weights. Don’t
use a bench to change a light bulb at home and don’t use it at the gym to
take a nap. Never use a weight bench for step aerobics. You can, however,
use your step bench as a weight bench as long as you’re not lifting dumb-
bells heavier than, say, 30 pounds.
Keep your feet flat on the floor or flat on the bench — whichever is
more comfortable.Don’t put your feet up in the air, especially if you’re a beginner.This
creates an unstable position and looks like you want your stomach
scratched. Instead, keep your feet firmly planted on the floor.Cable Pulleys ...............................................................................................
At most gyms, you see a box full of ropes, straps, handles, short bars, long
bars, V-shaped bars, and bars shaped like a handlebar mustache. This para-
phernalia looks like a pile of junk excavated from someone’s garage. But in
fact, these are the attachments you can clip onto a cable machine to do a
wide variety of exercises. The cable machine consists of a cable and a round
pulley attached to a metal frame.To strengthen your back, you can pull down a bar clipped to a high pulley —
one that’s attached all the way at the top. To strengthen your biceps, you can
pull up on a low pulley — attached near the bottom of the frame, typically a
few inches from the floor. To strengthen your chest, you can grab a high
pulley on each side of the frame and pull both handles toward your chest, as
if you’re going to wrap your arms around someone.Cable pulleys are a cross between machines and free weights. On the one
hand, the cable is hooked up to a stack of weights, so nothing can come
crashing down. On the other hand, the motion isn’t guided — you’re free to
pull the bar down the way you want to, and you’re free to make lots of mis-
takes. Like free weights, cable machines require a certain amount of control.Chapter 13: Demystifying Strength Equipment 201