Life Beyond Fife

Engineering from the glorious Kingdom

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Warming up and down

You don't just walk up to the biggest weight you've ever seen in your life and try to pick it up. Your body must be prepared for the stress. Mostly, this will come down to the body being warm, and muscles forewarned a little. Preparation on the day is also intrinsically tied to your body's flexibility; are you actually even supple enough to perform the lift you want to? Muscles can stretch and contract according to how they're used. If your exercises do not provide a full range of motion i.e. extending and contracting to the full, then you run...

4 min readRead more →
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Ratio of lifts

I remember watching a comedy lifting video on YouTube that had a line in it like, "No one likes 'Leg Day'. 'Leg Day' is tough. Your last 'Leg Day' also happened to be your first 'Leg Day'." For those not yet well versed enough in the lifting sub-culture to get the joke, a lot of people who lift don't like squats, so don't do squats. They'll do some exercises every now and again to make sure their small pins are just about powerful enough to carry their enlarged torso and arms. If you've been sold on the idea of making...

3 min readRead more →
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Basis of strength

Moving from aerobic based exercises to anaerobic means not only changing the exercises themselves, but also how you approach and rest between exercises. The clue is in the etymology of the word: aerobic means 'with air'. Anaerobic exercises i.e. strength building weight lifting, conversely means 'without air'. You are asking the body to move things after you've expended all the oxygen your blood or lungs can store or provide. When training to run, cycle, swim etc. novices quickly hit a wall where their lungs are frantically trying to keep the body supplied with enough oxygen. If you're performing a power...

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Technique is key

There is no new lesson in this chapter, merely a reiteration of two previously made points. In the beginning your body will still progress even if you lift incorrectly. Some lifters in your gym will likely be using poor technique. This lesson cannot be stressed enough: good technique is of the most paramount importance. As we've just covered, lifts should be done with good form which means finding out what good form is. I have seen stronger lifters than myself in the gym resting the bar on the wrong part of their traps when squatting, and doing the most lazy...

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Compound lifts

The key to strength is in making compound lifts the basis of your training routine. Let's break the term down. A lift is a strength exercise where you move a heavy weight from a stationary position to an elevated position, and back again. A compound lift is one which incorporates multiple different movements. For example, a classic example of a simple lift is a bicep curl: a dumbbell is held in the hand with the weight resting stationary at the side of the body with arm perfectly straight; the lift comes from bending the elbow so the forearm moves toward...

7 min readRead more →
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Why getting strong is hard – Part III

I remember growing up when I had some small dumbbells around the house. They might have been 5kg or even 10kg dumbbells, the memory is hazy. I think they were originally my mum's. I went to boxing training for a few weeks at university, and as part of a college football squad I had a routine of some body weight exercises: press ups, sit ups, planks etc. From all that I thought I knew some good exercises to increase my strength. There's such a difference between exercising at home or in a park, compared to going to a gym with...

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