Strength Training and Weight Lifting

July 26, 2021

Strength Training and Weight Lifting

Weight rack in the Hegg Rehabilitation Center

In the last of our series of wellness and exercise blogs, I am going to cover some of our strengthening equipment. In the very first blog, I covered our Kinesis One machine, which is a multi-purpose machine that allows you to do lots of different exercises. This machine is excellent for those who want to get a good workout in without having to use multiple machines. However, Hegg Wellness so many machines for members to utilize which I will touch on in this blog.

If you’re at Hegg Wellness, you’ll see 6 different machines that are up against the East wall on the North side of the gym. These 6 machines all offer different types of motions and exercises that work different muscle groups. We have a squat/step machine, a back/core machine, high pull, low pull, chest press, and shoulder press. The squat/step machine is for your lower body and is designed to allow you to do squats at different heights along with a lunge-type motion. The back/core machine allows you to work on your lower back, abdomen muscles, and torso. The high pull and low pull machines are mainly for arm strengthening and involve your shoulders, biceps, and forearms. Lastly, the chest press and shoulder press machines help work the shoulders and pectoral muscles. All of these machines do a great job of allowing you to get a good workout in while doing it controlled. We also have a four-plex machine that allows members to do leg press, leg flexion, leg extension, lat pulldowns, and many others with its multi-purpose benefits. These leg machines can be highly beneficial to strengthening your quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, knees, and other parts. The upper body exercises such as lat pulldowns and tricep extensions can help work the triceps, lats (latissimus dorsi), biceps, pectoral muscles, and forearms.

The second portion I wanted to cover is the free weights and squat racks. In the North side of the gym (at the entrance), there will be free weights such as dumbbells, kettlebells, and barbells. These free weights are seen as more challenging than the typical weight machine, and are less “controlled” exercises. Though it is important to have good form and technique with any machine, it is increasingly important to know what you’re doing with dumbbells, kettlebells, and barbells. It’s extremely important to have the right form, as the risk for injury goes up with free weights. However, free weights have a lot of benefit to them. Free weights require you to stabilize muscles, practice balance, work both sides of your body, and not over-compensate. Free weights also are shown to be more efficient at progressing in strength. Free weights can be up to 50% more effective in gaining strength because your body dictates all of the motions, and you have to control those exercises yourself as opposed to a machine that helps guide the motion and keep you stabilized and controlled. Finally, there are no limits with free weights because there’s no restriction on motion or path. So, what exercises could you do with free weights? Some prefer to do their work out in the squat rack, where they can do front and back squats, bench press, overhead press, barbell lunges, bent over rows, and many more. What about dumbbells and kettlebells? With dumbbells, you can do bicep curls, rows, shoulder press, lateral raises, front raises, and many more. With kettlebells, you can do kettlebell swings, goblet squats, one-arm cleans, push press, crossover lunges, chop downs, and many more!

I realize that many of the exercises I listed in this blog may not be known to the general public, but I would love to show you each of these exercises by way of a personal training session or orientation. If you are interested in learning these exercises and utilizing the gym, don’t be afraid to call me at 712-476-8081 or email me at jordyn.kleinwolterink@hegghc.org. I would love to help you get started on an exercise program and show you all that Hegg Wellness & Rehab has to offer!

 

By Jordyn Kleinwolterink