1. Know yourself – Know your limitations. Growing up means constantly pushing the envelope. Add 10 lbs. further; force the last couple of reps, pushing yourself. But, BUT… Don’t try to lift 200 pounds when you could barely do 170 pounds in the last workout. Don’t add weights for the sake of adding weights. Go for additional reps, take the strength build up gradually. Remember that you are in this for the long haul.
2. Know where you are: The gym is a dangerous place. Weights and machinery can do a lot of damage and, at worst, do the unthinkable. Be careful where you step and where you put your weights. Great, you just did 8 reps with 100 pound dumbbells on the incline press. DO NOT drop it to the ground with a roar of conquest. Slide it towards your thighs and carefully roll it all the way to the floor. If you had a spotter, the spotter carefully picks up one dumbbell and you lower the other. Know where you are. And along with tip #1, if you’re exercising alone at home, be smart. The last thing you need is to get stuck doing a heavy bench press.
3. Stretch. Before you exercise, while you exercise, and after you finish exercising. Nuff said.
4. Warm up. Two types of heating. First, the general warm-up before exercising. Any full body calisthenics for about 10 to 15 minutes. Do jumping jacks, running in place, pumping those arms, the good old squat and lunge (add a pushup as you do it), or anything else you can think of. Key is the whole body, he sets everything in motion. Nothing too hard, just sweat a little or shine. Second, the specific heating. Each exercise begins with a warm-up set of 15 to 20 repetitions.
5. Wear a tracksuit. Not the deltoid chops, to “accentuate” your massive traps, and high sleeve cuts to show off your arms. Wear a true tracksuit, whether at home or at the gym. Wearing a tracksuit keeps your body warm. A warm body is less prone to muscle pulls and strains. None of those vinyl sauna sweats, but a cotton tracksuit, lets you breathe.
6. Exercise sequentially. That is, for example, chest – shoulders – triceps. Not so much because of the old “keeps the blood in the same area” argument. That seems a bit silly anyway. The bench press works with all three of those mentioned, but how come the blood in your triceps is in the same area as your chest? Same for lateral pull downs – back and biceps are the same. Now stay with me on this. A while back, I read an article that said if you want big arms, just focus on arms for a day. So I did. Awful. My arms ached almost the first day and I felt like it was pulling on every strand of muscle fiber in my arms. Because? The first exercise was the barbell curl. It went like this: first set barbell (45lbs) for 20 reps. The second set was 85 pounds for 15 reps. The third set was 115 pounds for 8 reps. The last set was 125 pounds for 6 to 8 rep maxes. The stress on the wrist, elbows, and shoulders was incredible. Now, let’s go through it sequentially. Back training consists of stiff-legged deadlifts, bent-over barbell pushups (Dorian Yates style) (rows), and lateral pushups (can be any variety). By the end of that workout, your arms are pumped up, no need to push through heavy barbell curls. A few sets of dumbbell curls to isolate some biceps work and that’s it. Follow the logic? Despite the “huge 25-inch or 39-inch” arms some of these guys have, the biceps isn’t a big muscle, relatively speaking, and doesn’t need to be “punished” by itself.
7. Know yourself, yes – Listen to your body. If you are sick, take a break. A long time ago, I read somewhere that if you’re sick from the neck up (ie cold) exercise. If you are sick from the neck down (ie flu), don’t exercise. Be that as it may, rest. I once read that Nasser El Sonbaty stated that he could not afford to have a bad workout, because in a given year, he works each part of the body, say 40 to 50 times (I don’t remember the exact number). That meant to him that bad training cost him 2.5% of his productivity. WELL… For guys like you and me, this is for the long haul. We want to do this for a lifetime of benefits. Miss some workouts if you’re sick.
8. Rest. You need it. There is no need for guys like us to exercise more than 4 times a week. We have a job, a life and a family, a lot of priorities. Undertaking too much, too soon, is a recipe for hurting yourself.
9. Full range of motion. Slow to moderate speed. There can be no better way to tear tendons and ligaments, pull a muscle, than to throw weights with a short range of motion and weird body English to finish off the rep. Use a weight that allows you to finish sets using full, full range of motion.
10. Always keep a slight bend in the knees. Whether you’re doing curls, push-ups, deadlifts, any exercise that requires you to be on your feet, do it with a slight bend in your knees. Locking the knees puts the lower back in a weak position. Maintaining a slight bend helps keep your entire body firm and strong.
There you have it, my top ten for exercising safely. I hope that helps.