One-Kit Wonder
Why you need to hit the bar more often
A central component of any gym worth its salt, the barbell is for everyone – regardless of their training goal. In one bit of kit you’ve got endless exercise possibilities, and unlike flash-in-the-pan fitness fads barbell training never goes out of fashion: it simply evolves. WHY BOTHER?
Because it’s one of the first pieces of gym equipment most people use, it’s easy for the barbell to breed overfamiliarity and complacency. You won’t be the only one if you’ve settled for the same handful of exercises – an endless cycle of back squats, bench, curls and presses – and seen progress stutter.
While all the above are undoubtedly e ective, having access to barbells and performing the same exercises over and over again is like having a Ferrari and never getting out of second gear. Here’s a handful of the things you can expect to experience and implement with a more dynamic approach to hitting the bar.
1. Serious strength
The barbell is a staple of most strength-training programmes, and we don’t want to neglect that strength element. What we will do is refine it, namely by utilising unilateral exercises to iron out any weaknesses.
2. Refreshed conditioning
Love it or hate it, there’s no doubt CrossFit has shone a light on the possibilities of the barbell when it comes to conditioning. Sick of the treadmill? Barbell complexes – like the one on page 88 – are more than a match when it comes to firing up the metabolic afterburners and torching body fat.
3. Workout efficiency
If you can use a single item of kit for an entire workout, you remove all unnecessary waiting
time: you’re not queueing for different machines, you’re not having to move around, and you can largely keep yourself to yourself. That lack of distraction means you’ll be in and out of the gym in 40 minutes or less – having completed a serious session.
4. Exercise variety
There’s huge potential for variety, which most people just don’t tap into. That includes exercises that require little in the way of technique coaching, but provide significant fitness and injury-prevention benefits.
5. Revived enthusiasm
Motivation suffers when you become bored of the same old training methods. The following workouts should re-ignite your enthusiasm for training by providing you with new exercises to learn, new sets and rep combos to explore, and new fitness challenges to overcome. By moving on from your usual exercises, you’ll develop new strengths, technique and mobility benefits. You’ll also add far more to your training repertoire, giving you a platform for new workouts later down the line.