Edited by: Giancarlo Gallinoro
Most gym goers tend to train without a minimum knowledge of the facts. How many of those who train with weights do an appropriate warm-up? How many train with adequate loads? And how many do stretching exercises at the end of the workout?
At least for my personal experience, very few.
Not to mention those who, starting from the first day of training, begin to "pull" like desperate.
It is therefore no wonder that these people are injured.
There are some simple steps to take to train safely. Tricks that are often seen as a waste of time, but that on the contrary allow us to reach our goal, whatever it is, without taking unnecessary risks.
Conditioning period
It is used to prepare our body for weight training. In general, two weeks are sufficient (3-4 in the case of sedentary or not very young people) with low loads (40-50% of the ceiling), high repetitions (12-20), slow and continuous movements.
Better to use machines or free weights?
Often at this stage in gyms it is advised to perform the exercises on the machines (at least for beginners). The reason is that with the machines the risk of injury is very low (unless an exaggerated load is used), since the movement is guided.
But above all, if our goals are muscle strengthening and hypertrophy, after the conditioning period is over it is very likely that we will start training with barbells and free weights. And here the problem arises: machines, precisely because they drive the movement, do not allow the stabilizing muscles to work in synergy with the target muscles of our training. When we move from machines to free weights, the problem that we wanted to avoid at the outset reappears, which is not only postponed, but in some cases amplified, given that, given the two weeks of conditioning, we will immediately start to increase loads, putting too much strain on the stabilizers that have not worked until now.
The best thing is to start immediately using dumbbells and barbells, taking advantage of the conditioning period (therefore low loads) to become familiar with the movements. In this way at the end of this phase it is possible to start increasing the loads without risks. If you are not sure of the execution (which is likely if you are a beginner) ask the instructor to explain it to you and check that you are not making mistakes.
Furthermore, at this stage it would be appropriate to focus on any deficient muscle groups and on those that are notoriously the "weak links". This is the case, for example, of the so-called "rotator cuff" (muscle-tendon complex composed of Sovraspinato, Sottospaspinato, Piccolo rotonda, Sottoscapolare), home of most shoulder traumas, for which specific exercises exist:
 | On your stomach on a bench, grab the handlebar with your limb perpendicular to the ground and bring your forearm parallel to the ground; return to the starting position. The elbow remains fixed and acts as a pivot throughout the exercise. Exhale in an active phase (while the forearm rises), inhale in the passive phase (while the forearm returns to the starting position). |
 | Lying on one side, with the arm resting on the bench lying on top, grasp the handlebar with the opposite arm and move the forearm away from the body, taking it parallel to the ground; return to the starting position. The elbow should be kept in contact with the side and bent at 90 ° for the entire duration of the exercise. Exhale in an active phase (while the forearm rises), inhale in the passive phase (while the forearm returns to the starting position). |
 | Lying on one side, hold the handlebar with the arm in contact with the bench, keeping the opposite arm stretched along the body. Bend the limb holding the handlebar so that the arm and forearm form a 90 ° angle, with the forearm parallel to the floor and the arm in contact with the torso. Bring the forearm close to the chest until it is perpendicular to the ground and return to the starting position. Exhale in an active phase (while the forearm rises), inhale in the passive phase (while the forearm returns to the starting position). |
These exercises must be performed with very light weights (at the beginning 0.5-1kg, then max 2-3 kg) and it is a good rule not to interrupt them at the end of the conditioning period, taking care however to insert them on a day other than that on which the shoulders are trained with the classic exercises (slow forward, side raises etc).
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