Lifting Weights Won't Make You Musclebound?
In 1937, Dr. Peter Karpovich of Springfield College in
Massachusetts published a ground-breaking paper showing that
lifting weights helped men improve their coordination. At the
time, his paper was ridiculed by most athletes, particularly
professional baseball players. They were afraid that lifting
weights would cause them to develop such large muscles that
they would lose the fine coordination necessary to hit and throw
a baseball. Today we know there is no such condition as “muscle
bound”. Baseball players all lift weights and they are so much
better as athletes that the best baseball players in the world
before 1940 probably would not even make today’s professional
teams.
Training for strength improves coordination. Your brain is
a master switchboard that coordinates your muscles. Lifting
weights does not interfere with brain function; it improves
coordination in activities that require strength, such as playing
sports, working as a carpenter or opening a stuck door. Strength
training also makes you faster. Muscles are made up of slow and
fast twitch fibers. The slow-twitch, red fibers are used primarily
for endurance such as running long distances or performing
continuous work. The fast twitch, white fibers are used primarily
for strength and speed. The same fast-twitch fibers that are
strengthened by weight-lifting are used for speed, so the stronger
your muscle is, the faster you can move it. Lifting weights will
improve your performance in every sport, since they virtually all
require power.
Checked 9/29/08