Remember to breathe. In general, exhale forcefully through your mouth
as you lift the weight and inhale deeply through your nose as you lower
it. Just don’t overdo it because overly forceful breathing can leave you
feeling lightheaded. Although proper breathing is important for speeding
oxygen to your muscles, don’t get hung up on the mechanics. Some
people spend so much time trying to get the correct breathing pattern
down that they lose track of what they’re doing. Just don’t hold your
breath. You can bring about sharp increases in your blood pressure, and
you can even faint from lack of air.
Do, however, hold your breath during extremely heavy lifts. This pro-
tects your spine by bracing it with the pressure from the held breath. We
mention this information on the outside chance that some world-class
power lifter reads this section and becomes incensed by the omission of
it. Don’t hold your breath unless you’re aiming to lift world-record
amounts of weight.Use a full range of motion. In other words, pull or push as far as you’re
supposed to. (If you’re not sure, a trainer can show you the correct
range of motion for each exercise. See Chapter 4 for tips on finding a
personal trainer.) Using the full range of motion enhances your flexibil-
ity. However, you don’t want to go past a natural range of motion
because this can cause injury to the joint. For example, lifting dumbbells
out to the side above shoulder level puts too much stress on the shoul-
der. Sitting down too far when you squat can cause knee injuries.
Pay attention. Remind yourself which muscle you’re working, and focus
on that muscle. It’s easy to do lat pull-downs without challenging your
lats. And it’s easy to do abdominal crunches without really working your
abs. Suzanne recently watched a guy perform abdominal crunches with
the sports section of the newspaper lying on his lap. He tried to steal a
glance at the paper every time he curled his torso up. We suspect his
abs aren’t getting much in the way of results.A word about the exercises ..............................................................
The 18 exercises described in this section aren’t your only options. We could
write an entire book about strength training exercises. In fact, we did write
that book: Weight Training For Dummies(published by Wiley), which features
more than 130 exercises using a vast array of equipment. So how did we
choose the moves that we demonstrate in this book?We emphasize dumbbell exercises because you can easily perform them at
home or at the gym. The particular dumbbell exercises that we show here are
all suitable for beginners; they don’t require the brawn of an NFL defensive
end or the coordination of an Olympic gymnast. Also, many of these moves
perform double or triple duty; for example, the squat works three lower-body
muscles — your front thighs, rear thighs, and derriere — in a single exercise.216 Part IV: Lift and Curl: Building a Stronger Bod with Weights