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Get Off Your Rear!

By BaBoomer Fitness Expert, Stephen Holt

Want to discover how you can use more muscles, burn more fat and work your abs, low back and thighs all at the same time with this one simple change in your fitness program?

First, ask yourself this question...

Why do people sit while lifting weights?

Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? Most will reply, "That's the way I learned to do this exercise," without taking into account that they may have learned a less effective method for achieving their fat loss goals.

An argument can be made that seated exercises work the target muscle "better."

That's true to a degree.

But is that your goal? Should it be your goal?

If your goal is strictly bodybuilding, then seated exercises are great. Bodybuilders care only about the muscles that show and care little about the 'unsung' muscles that many bodybuilders have never even heard of.

For example, did you know that muscle weakness in the lumbar multifidus of the low back and the deepest ab muscle, the transverse abdominis, have been correlated to the incidence of low back pain?

Did you also know that standing exercises can work these muscles effectively, yet the seated versions of the same exercises do not work these muscles at all?

It's also important to note that, at least in healthy people without back pain, the transversus abdominis (TA) is the first muscle to fire with most movements of the arm or leg.

That means that if you are not working the TA, you may be developing a faulty motor pattern, that is, your muscles are not working in the order and with the relative timing that they need for coordinated, efficient and safe movement.

Maximizing the size of certain muscles - as in performing traditional body building exercises - often means making sacrifices in other areas of the body.

If, however, you are interested in improving performance and function outside of the weight room, seated exercises may predispose you to injury.

Seated exercises do a great job of working the target muscles, but do nothing to exercise the stabilizing muscles, especially the stabilizers of the trunk.

It's these other muscles that you need to use concomitantly with the prime movers in the real world.

Otherwise, you are creating an imbalance between the prime movers and the stabilizers.

A joint is simply where two bones meet. Those bones are kept in place by passive tension in ligaments and by active contraction of the muscles surrounding the joint.

In order for the joint to move properly, your stabilizers have to work with the prime movers to maintain an optimal relationship between the two bones.

If the stabilizers are not proportionately as strong as the prime movers - or if you have taught your prime movers to work without your stabilizers through overuse of traditional machines and other seated exercises - your joints cannot move naturally.

Joints that do not move naturally cause bones to meet at surfaces that are not designed to take as much stress; this can lead to arthritic changes in the joint.

Prime movers that are inordinately strong in relation to the stabilizers change the mechanics of the joints.

At the shoulder, for example, the rotator cuff muscles keep the humerus (upper arm) in the socket; the stabilizers of the shoulder girdle keep the socket in place on the rib cage; while the muscles of the abdominal region stabilize the ribcage with respect to the pelvis.

As Dr. Mel Siff says in the book Supertraining:

It is not often appreciated that seated exercises always impose a greater load on the lumbar spinal discs than equivalent standing exercise.

Even without an added load, sitting with the back maintaining its neutral curvatures increases the lumbar disc pressure by about 40% (Chaffin & Anderson, 1984).

If the back is allowed to flex forward, this stress can increase by as much as 90%.

The increase in stress becomes far greater against resistance, particularly if jerky movements are used to initiate of terminate the movement.

The dangers are made worse by sitting, because one is unable to absorb any shock of loading by flexing the knees, hips or ankles, as it the case when standing.

In the vast majority of cases, machines provide an inferior, incomplete and less efficient way of training the musculoskeletal system.

And as I tell the athletes I work with, if you sit down to lift weights, you're only preparing yourself to do a lot of sitting on the bench.

Besides leading to joint dysfunction, overuse of seated exercises lead to faulty motor programs.

Seated exercises train the prime movers to work without the stabilizer muscles of the body. This pattern of movement can become a motor engram - a complex motor pattern that you follow habitually without thinking.

Your brain does not work in terms of muscles; it works in terms of movements. If you train your biceps on an arm curl machine, for example, your brain remembers that group of muscle contractions and generalizes it.

That means that when you use your biceps in the real world, you will tend to use the same pattern that you used in the weight room, that is, not using stabilizing muscles of the trunk.

This can lead to back injury when lifting a box or a bag of groceries because you have not trained your trunk how to work along with your biceps.

Standing exercises are simply more functional. When you have to lift something you usually stand up, you rarely sit down.

When was the last time that you have to lift up something heavy - while sitting down?

Conversely, when you have to pick something up, do you usually sit down first? No, you stand and use your trunk and legs along with your arms.

Do you want to work your abs?

How about your inner and 'outer' thighs?

Simply spend more of your time performing standing exercises instead of passively sitting on a machine.

It makes no sense to do 45 minutes of seated exercises then take an "Abs Class" when you could have been working your abs the whole time you were in the weight room just by choosing the proper exercises.

Machines have their purpose; they are excellent for "isolating" muscles.

Just remember that in order to improve the way you function and perform in the real world, at some point you have to integrate your muscles by performing standing exercises.

About the Author:

Literally millions of readers of fitness magazines including Shape, Health, Men's Health, and Men's Fitness have made their exercise programs both more effective and more effecient thanks to Stephen Holt's exclusive 3-4-5 Total Body Fitness System.

For your free report on the system that led to Stephen being named "Personal Trainer of the Year" by the American Council on Exercise and "Expert of the Year" by AllExperts.com, go to http://BabyBoomerFitnessExpert.com.