“I can only advise people who are just starting out, and even those who are not completely new to it, to get help from a competent coachimmediately insists Marc Francaux, former high-level swimmer and researcher in Motor Sciences and Physiology at UCL. This will ensure in particular that you use the right loads with the right gestures. By doing anything, you risk exhaustion and above all, injuries. The coach will have to take into account different parameters to design your training, in particular your sporting past – regular or complete sedentary athlete – and your age.”
Maintaining quality of life
And to remind here, before providing its main advice, that muscle strengthening is useful at all ages. “The muscle is important because it generates the force which allows us to carry out the actions of daily life for a long time, he insists, targeting people over 50. Getting out of your car, out of your bathtub, going up the stairs… Having a sporting activity working on your muscular chains allows you to maintain a certain quality of life for longer. This can be up to 10 or 15 years longer. It also allows you to preserve your bone mineral density as much as possible, which is interesting when you have in mind the degree of disability reached after a fracture of the neck of the femur, for example. Among young people, muscular strength is of interest in many sports, even those of endurance. Above all, we will have more protection against different injuries. But here, again the same advice of caution and progressiveness. Doing the most, such as accumulating heavy loads, is in most cases not the best…
That said, some advice from Marc Francaux on a few themes:
– à quelle frequence ?“If you (re)start sport, practice once a week for a few months. Then twice. Then three times. Do not start with three weekly sessions, you risk muscle or even tendon pain. Progress is one of the keys to success. Your session can last up to an hour and a half, with a part devoted to cardio (cycling, elliptical bike, treadmill…) and another for muscles If you are athletic and want to strengthen your muscles, you will need to plan with your trainer a periodization of the training load, therefore blocks dedicated to certain specificities of your sport. unlike a sprinter or a rugby player, we can have periods where we do more sessions, like three or four times a week, what we need is to never stop so as not to regress, hence the point of reminders, like once a week, when the emphasis is on the sport. practiced at the base.”
– What diet? “If you exercise for health reasons, without excess, to have normal physical activity, you must eat normally. There is no reason to take protein or carbohydrate supplements. Perhaps you will just have to adapt the rations.”
– For children?“Prohibit bodybuilding for very young children? We’re coming back to that. It’s an idea from the 20th century. We can do pediatric bodybuilding, and even lift weights, but only by paying particular attention to technique. We also need to pay attention during the growth peak period. But with good supervisors, strict rules, it’s interesting, particularly around the acquisition of good gestures which will be very useful later.”
– Which circuit? “You should always start with a warm-up (cycling, elliptical…). Then, for beginners, work with guided bars (the opposite of dumbbells or weightlifting bars). Do between 8 and 10 stations (3 x 15 repetitions each time), working your entire body. muscular chain in the end. Don’t forget the big forgotten ones that are sometimes the glutes. Like the quadriceps, they are large muscle masses. Working them well is interesting for the metabolism.
– Copy videos seen on the net? “I’m a big advocate of well-trained personal trainers. Nowadays, anyone can say they’re a personal trainer. Anyone can post videos showing exercises to do. The beginner stumbles upon this and doesn’t have the perspective to say if it’s good or not good. So be careful and respect this basic rule: always be wary of people who promise you rapid progress…
