Tuesday, December 02, 2008

The different forms of exercise

I received this great question over the weekend that I thought you might find it interesting -

My question for you is, even though weight training is a primo form of resistance training, do you exclusively recommend the use of weight training with Eat Stop Eat?

This was my answer -

With Eat Stop Eat ANY FORM of resistance training will do. I realize that when most people hear 'resistance training' they automatically think 'weight training' however, resistance can mean so much more than simply weights.

Really, it should be called something more vague, like muscle-stress training, since what we are really trying to accomplish is adding an acute stress to the muscle. Isometrics, weight training, contact sports (think a football line or a wrestling match), and body weight exercises (gymnastics) ALL accomplish this.

Even with weight training there is still a lot of variety with what you can do and use to stress your muscles. You can use traditional tools like dumbbells and barbells or more obscure implements like lengths of chain and even rubber bands - I just read about an entire
workout program designed around the convenience of rubber bandexercises (Resistance Band Workout).

The most important aspect of any resistance training program is to make sure that you are constantly improving by putting the muscle under a little more stress each time you train it. The method or tools that you decide to use to create this stress are not nearly as important as the stress itself and making sure it increases in some way from exercise session to exercise session.


And, yes -You can weight train while you are fasting


BP

PS- Here is a video of one of my favorite Chest exercises - The Corkscrew Incline Press




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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i wouldnt ever recommend weight training while fasting. the last time i went to the gym w/o eating i about passed out, and got really dizzy.
-jack

Anonymous said...

I think that it is an approach that has merit, but it should be slowly worked in to, to make sure that your comfortable with it. Good post.

Brad Pilon said...

Hi Jack,

It really is not difficult to train while fasted.

I regularly train during my fasts, anywhere from 6 to 22 hours in.

BP

Anonymous said...

I can't stand it when I hear people say this, but...

There is a freakish energy source that is primed when you fast. I'm not talking about mental alertness, but actual physical potential energy you can literally feel.

This is completely new to me and has only come about since I started ESE. In fact, if you do a leg workout on your fasting day, you'll honestly have trouble sleeping because the combo amps up your body in such a way as to be almost uncomfy.

I prefer a heavy, non-legs workout on my fasting days to unwind some of this energy.

Anonymous said...

I regularly train with kettlebells while fasting. Usually after 12-15 hrs> It's not a big deal. I have never felt like I was going to pass out and I train hard. I've even done heavy deadlifts while fasted. I think 90% of the objections to fasting are psychological not physiological. Once you start doing it, it really is not that hard. We have physiological mechanisms that allow us to go for prolonged periods with out eating. Thats how our ancestors survived.