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Old 02-27-2004, 07:15 AM   #39
giriasis
Dojo: Sand Drift Aikikai, Cocoa Florida
Location: Melbourne, Florida
Join Date: Jun 2000
Posts: 823
United_States
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Quote:
So will working out with light weights and more reps give me strength without bulking up?
It has for me, but then again women, in general, have a hard time bulking up at all. I think the key is that you also do flexibility training as well and not let your muscles get tight.
Quote:
And if so, can some of you out there give me some suggestions for the types of exercises to do during weight training that will help with Aikido? Thanks, James
With the workouts I use, there are a lot of squats, dips and lunges, and leg presses (step-ups onto a 14" box). We also do a lot of floor work for the legs as well. These include outer and inner side leg raises, bridge and table work. I found these exercises get my legs strong and has really made doing suwari waza, hanmi handachi and getting up from rolls a lot easier.

Core work includes ab and back exercises these really will help your ukemi. AND, I've also discovered you really learn to find your center this way to. While doing ab exercises I make sure to focus on pulling my navel through to the ground and focus on proper breathing. You breath out on the crunch and in when you go back down. It's better to do your crunches slow and deliberate focusing on form rather than trying to do a 100 ab crunch marathon.

For upper body, pushups and pec-flys for the chest, shoulder presses, delt flys, delt lifts and other shoulder exercises are great to protect your shoulder joints. And biceps curls (double, single, hammer curls) tricep presses (french press and kickbacks) and tricep dips are great for the arms. I've discovered an improved grip strength, and I attribute that to the bicep curls (I use 10 pounders)(I guess I need strong wrists to stabilize the weight).

They way TheFIRM workouts incorporates their reps and sets is that they will do at least two to three sets for a given body part/exercise. The reps with vary their tempo and include pulses for shorter range of motion and then change back to longer range of motion. I'd suggest going to Sports Authority and check out the Body Sculpt video. (you can use a chair or 13-14" tool box for a high step).

The FIRM's main demographic is women but men do benefit from these as well. They have videos that are pure sculpt, pure cardio, and cardio plus sculpt. The cardio plus sculpt videos are their classic style workouts, but may be a little do dancy for a male's taste. (I'd say that for their carido tapes except perhaps Super Cardio(VHS)/Super Cardio Mix[DVD, chaptered and programmable], which is killer for cardio) But I think you can easily enjoy their pure sculpting tapes, just use challenging weights.

Of course you can apply similiar principles at a gym or with your own home gym. You don't have to use the videos. But their a no brainer for me because I don't have to sit an plan out a work out. I just have to pop a tape in.

Last edited by giriasis : 02-27-2004 at 07:22 AM.

Anne Marie Giri
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