To All Workout Nuts, this is mainly for those intermediate and advanced trainers who use weight machines and/or Olympic bars, as I do. There is a problem with machines and Olympic bars and that has to do with adding weight when you hit a new level. With the Olympic bars, at least mine, the lowest weight you can add is five pounds. With my machine, the lowest weight you can add is 7 1/2 pounds. Now, those don't sound like huge amounts of increase, but they are when you have just set a new Personal Record. And especially in some of the weaker lifts, such as curls, one-arm reverse grip tricep cable pulldowns, etc. In fact, for the latter exercise, a real awkward one where you can only use very light weights compared to any other of your lifts, the 7 1/2 pound increase on my machine was a 25% increase. That is simply too much for this exercise and when I moved the pin to the next level, I went from doing 12 reps in perfect form to barely squeaking out 4 reps with form that wouldn't bear much examination.
So, what's the answer. There are Olympic bar mini disks of 1/2 pounds and 1 pounds available at the Hard Gainer site. But, for the machines, you can't add disks. So, I have been using Bollinger Adjustable Ankle weights that also fit my arm. These are adjustable from 1 to 20 pounds, though I only bought the 10 pound set. I have found this a great way to move poundages up in a sneaky way. They work terrifically for bench presses, lat pulldowns, curls, and the reverse tricep thingy. They don't seem to work for the two armed tricep pulldowns. And, of course, they are superb for leg raises on the incline bench or the chin bar.
Once again, I get no commission from any of these folks, but both WWW.TheSportsAuthority.Com and WWW.SportsChalet.Com have these ankle weights for $13.95 each plus $3.95 shipping. I've seen for $22 at other sites. |
