Going to the gym

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I disagree with 2/3 statements.

For the weights, I think free weights are better, yes you can get injured using free weights, but getting injured using free weights is more a matter of biting off more than you can chew rep or weight-wise. For technique, you can ask people in the gym and possibly make an acquaintance or a friend (usually people are happy when you ask them for help, it's a special interest and people, even NTs, like rambling on about them.) But also, there's usually a gazillion youtube videos of people doing the exercises or explaining how to do them. I mean yes there's risk, but in everything worth doing there's risk, really.

The big problem with machines is, they work your muscles in pretty much wrong ways, thus you can basically put yourself at worse risk for injury with constant use of machines. They don't allow stabilizers muscles to activate nearly as much, since machine motions are fixed ranges of motion. The other problem is that they only work individual muscles, not movements. Your body has to work together as a whole unit, like if you do any activity ever, you're going to be using a large variety of muscles. IE, if you punch someone, it's not just your arm, your chest, back and leg and even feet muscles will be working, so thus free weights are better as they better replicate real life movements you do. But yeah, machines have a limited place, they're good for if you're rehabbing from injuries and need to strengthen a specific muscle, or avoid working a certain muscle, or some sort of specialized setting like that, but for general use, not good.

As far as muscle milk, it's not bad really, but just not terribly useful. Just make sure your meals are good, and contain a decent amount of protein, a good goal to aim for is 1g per lb of lean body mass, ie, your weight without fat weight. If that's not doable, try to get like 1g per 2lbs of bodyweight, Arnold recommended that for beginners in his book. But only go for muscle milk/etc, if you're not eating enough protein in your diet already. Personally for me, I've been finding the best thing I can do to get some more powerful lifts and performance in the gym is eating more vegetables and fruits raw, you get a lot more vitamins and minerals that way, though meats are good sources of protein and some vitamins, too. Also, I feel getting the nutrients from veggies and fruits very much helps with recovery. As far as muscle milk after a treadmill, not gonna really do much for you. Generally after cardio, you're only gonna feel sore for a few minutes afterward, whereas with weights it can take a few days sometimes, that's where taking extra protein comes in handy.

Anyway, as far as socially, there's not much to worry about at the gym. Just put your headphones on and ignore everyone, and just be courteous with people, that's about it. Headphones are pretty much required at the gym, though, to block out the conversations/etc of other people.

As far as cardio goes, though, I find machines REALLY boring, and pretty much can't do them. Maybe if I was on the International Space Station or something. But I find it much more fun to go hiking outside or something. The biggest advice I can say about "staying in shape" is, when you find a sport or activity you like doing, it's much easier motivation to stay in shape, as it gives you a concrete goal, rather than a vague goal of "be in shape" that you have now. Without having a specific goal, you can't really plan toward any progress. So think of specific things you'd like to be able to do (or look like) and work toward them.

Thanks for the feedback on Muscle Milk. That's kind of what I figured regarding just doing Cardio.

As for a goal I don't care about bulking up. I would just like to be leaner and have some muscle tone.

Beyond that I have a more vague notion that I would like to try some kind of martial arts after getting in better physical shape. I only say that is a vague goal because I don't think there are any Martial Arts centers around here. I would even consider things like Tai Chi or Qigong just because they're whole body motion exercises. The process of moving through the forms looks interesting to.


Also my contract is just for a Summer Special for 3 months so I don't have a long commitment.

Military(shoulder) press is probably the only upper-body heavy lifting exercise that's better to do on a machine/rack because the bar is right over the persons head. Free weight is pretty awkward for this exercise.

I do it standing, I quite like it that way. Standing overhead press I sorta like jerks(video) more, though, cuz you can lift more weight with a jerk, but it's less of an upper body strength builder. But, I like it standing, just feels more natural, I find lifting overhead more natural too, I find benching extremely unnatural feeling. It's harder, but half of strength is developing balance/flexibility to use that strength, so yeah. I guess your perspective has merit if you're doing it from a bodybuilding kinda perspective though (which I guess most people have.)

I tried those years ago once or twice, and the manager of the gym I went to said "we don't condone that here". The lift in that video looked very dangerous which must be why those two guys immediately rushed over to help rack the bar afterwards.

I'd take my business elsewhere then.

The only reason he had the two people help get the weight back down was cuz it was 405 pounds, most of the time after doing Olympic lifts, especially jerks, you just drop the weight back on the ground, and he put it on his back after for whatever reason instead, so it's totally reasonable to have 2 people push up on the bar to decelerate it when you put it back on your back, considering your arms probably are about to give out in strength after doing that. At 407lbs, too, you'd have likely have two spotters benching or doing whatever else, too.

Also compared to benching, it's impossible to get stuck under the bar, part of the reason I like overhead lifting more, don't need a spotter really, as if the weight is too much, you just put the weight back down at your shoulders, whereas benching to attempt a maxout, you NEED a spotter, and even just when doing higher weights, you need one, too, and I don't have a workout partner or anything, and while I do ask random people for spots occasionally, it's sorta awkward.

Injurywise, everything has the potential to hurt you. Overhead lifts there's a potential of back problems, certainly, but the same is true of benching once you start arching your back, possibly moreso. Also, with benching, it's arguably easier to get shoulder problems from it, too, as basically (if what I understand is correct) the front shoulder muscles get worked more than the back ones, and nerves get pinched eventually. Or, people bench with too wide of a grip or too much decline benching then tear a rotator cuff. Before benching really got en vogue, rotator cuff injuries pretty much only happened to baseball pitchers, but now it's getting stupidly common. I think regarding the overhead exercises, it's more of a case of people fearing what they don't know as far as safety goes with them.

The gym I workout at now has a machine that closely simulates freeweight. The bar weighs 45 lbs. and can be moved in any direction. There's also an adjustable safety catch that keeps it from getting stuck on your chest when benching.

For shoulder(military) press I use a different traditional machine where the bar only moves up and down. By the way are those standing overhead presses normally done by people at your gym? I've never seen them done at any gym I've been to in my entire life. lol

Well now Crossfit is getting popular, so there's a lot more of Olympic lifts/etc going on. The standing overhead press like that, though, is popular, albeit with light weights. Sometimes partial reps, too. I'd say push presses (basically jerks) are more popular, though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0gEsMc1JZ4 My gym isn't that serious of a gym, either, they do have a "sport specific training" place in there now, so now thankfully they got an Olympic lifting platform and bumper plates.