Lifting free weights is one of the most effective ways to strengthen your muscles, burn calories, and be at pretty much whatever that you do.
If your strength workout is restricted to resistance machines, it is time to get up and grab some weights. Not only are they convenient and cost-effective if you are working out at home, but using free weights may actually beat out traditional fitness equipment in the performance department, also.
According to trainers, incorporating them into your fitness routine is one of the most effective ways to strengthen your muscles, burn calories, and be at pretty much everything that you do.
Free Weights Are Functional
The best exercises are the ones that improve your performance out of the gym-whether that means running a half-marathon, moving furniture around your living room, or climbing onto your own kitchen counters because your home was designed for tall men and women.
These exercises are what trainers call”functional,” and by and large, they require free weights.
Free weights give your body an chance to move throughout all 3 planes of motion, so that you move throughout space like you would in normal life.
Machines generally have you ever sitting down and lifting a weighted load while still confined to a single plane of motion. In life out of the health club, you are rarely if ever pushing, pulling, or lifting while seated.
Even a basic free-weight exercise, such as a standing barbell biceps curl, carries over into daily activities like lifting up grocery bags or shopping bags. Now, that’s a basic exercise.
Free Weights Are Efficient
Since free weights, unlike machines, aren’t fixed to a certain path, that means you don’t just have to pull or push in one direction. You also have to keep the weights-and yourself-from wobbling. That’s a great thing for all of your muscles.
Because your body has to work to support the weight and control the motion, your larger muscles, stabilizer muscles, and core all work together to control your movements.
Free Weights Improve Your Balance
Free weights don’t just work a variety of muscles at the same time. They make them work together, which is critical for balance and coordination.
As an example, a study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that people who performed free-weight exercises improved their balance almost twice as much as people who performed similar exercises on resistance-training machines.
Free Weights Burn A Fantastic Amount Of Calories
The more muscle you work during a specific exercise, the more calories you’re going to burn with every rep.
And if any free-weight exercise is going to tax your smaller stabilizers greater than resistance-machine exercises, free weights also allow you to perform compound movements that work your entire body at the same time, ” he says.
Think about a squat to overhead press: By hitting your legs, core, arms, and shoulders, the movement sends your calorie burn off through the roof.
There Are No Limits With Free Weights
Free weights are arguably the most versatile workout tool. All you need are the weights and a few square feet of vacant space, and you can perform hundreds, if not thousands, of exercises to strengthen almost every muscle in your body.