My Favorite Exercises: 45-Degree Leg Press

Squats are always touted as the greatest exercise for the glutes (rear end) and the entire upper portion of the legs (especially the thighs). Unfortunately, they seem to aggravate my knees. I don't like pain, and I don't like injuries, so I avoid squats.

What's a girl to do? My favorite leg press exercise is done on a 45-degree sled with plates. In this exercise, you are pushing the weights upward while lying on your back rather than pushing the weights horizontally while seated.

Either version of the exercise is good. I simply prefer the 45-degree sled. I feel that I get a slightly better leg workout in this position.

To ensure you use good form and don't injure yourself, follow these guidelines:

• Keep your knees aligned over your toes to prevent knee strain.
• Only bend the knees as much as you can without putting strain on them. You'll have to determine where that point is through careful trial. If you feel a twinge, stop immediately and don't bend that far again. You may also need to lower your weight.
• Extend your legs all the way on the exertion, but never lock your knees.
  
• Keep your feet flat on the platform about shoulder width apart.

Especially if you have knee problems, you want to work to strengthen the muscles around the knees with leg presses, leg extensions and leg curls.

You can exercise injury-free at any age.

Working Out as You Age

As we age, we need to make changes in our workouts. While it's good to push yourself hard, if you injure yourself, you won't be able to work out at all.

The shoulders and knees seem to be most prone to injury from lifting too-heavy weights.

Here are some basic tips to help prevent injury and still get a great workout:

1. Decrease weights and increase repetitions and sets. You can get the same benefit from your weight training with lighter weights if you increase reps and sets. If you do 8 reps, push for 12. If you do two sets now, try three. You should also minimize the time between sets. Keep it to 30 seconds maximum.
   
2. Avoid exercises that put too much stress on joints. For example, I cannot do squats because it hurts my knees. I also cannot do triceps dips (on a bench or a dip machine) because it places too much strain on my shoulders.
   
3. Find exercises that don't put unnecessary strain on joints. Do a leg press machine instead of squats. Do any of a score of triceps exercises (machines, cable pulley, bars or dumbbells) rather than dips. See my post on the triceps rope pushdown.

Don't try to prove anything at the gym. There is no one worth impressing if it leads to injury that sidelines you for months. Be aware of your body's limitations, especially as you get into your late 40s and beyond. You can be buff and injury-free. Just use common sense.

My Favorite Exercises: Triceps Rope Pushdown

Everyone likes to work the biceps. We need to make sure the triceps get equal time. We don't want our arms to be unbalanced.

While there are many triceps exercises (with machines and without), one of my favorites is the triceps rope pushdown done on the the cable pulley machine.

You can do the triceps pushdown with a rigid bar, but the rope gives you an extra bit of work.

Here's how to do the exercise:

1. With the pulley set in a high position (near the top of the machine), attach the rope. The rope attachment should be available in your gym.
2. Holding the rope at about chest level, push down keeping your elbows in and hands close together. Don't let your arms go too high in the bent position; this is too much of a muscle release. The range of motion is in the downward position.
3. At the bottom of the motion, continue to push down, letting the hands extend away from each other toward the outside of your hips. This is the extra push that really works the triceps hard.
4. Return to the starting position, controlling the motion throughout the exercise.

I feel this gives the triceps a much more complete workout through the range of motion rather than restricting the movement to the straight down and up of most triceps machines.

Be sure you keep the shoulders relaxed and pressed down throughout the exercise. You want to work your triceps, not your shoulders and neck.

Try the triceps rope pushdown the next time you're at the gym. See if you agree that it gives your triceps an incredible workout.

My Top Ten Gym Pet Peeves

We're supposed to stay focused on our own workouts at the gym, but let's face it, we can't help but watch other people. I'm the worst offender. Today I'm going to share my top ten pet peeves from the gym.

Pet Peeve #1: People who wear street clothes to the gym. We have functional clothes for a reason. Why do some people insist on wearing jeans or pants and a belt to the gym? Besides restricting your movement, part of your workout is psychological. The right clothes put you in the mood to work out.

Pet Peeve #2: People (usually guys) who sweat all over the machines and don't wipe them off. Enough said!

Pet Peeve #3: The exercisers who do circuits and you have no idea when they are actually finished with a machine. They do one set on one machine, move to another, then another and then go back to the first and start over. We've discussed this before: you get maximum benefit when you do one exercise until failure or inability to use correct form. You can't do that with a circuit. You must do multiple sets of one exercise with minimal rest in between. Which brings me to my next pet peeve.

Pet Peeve #4: Those people who sit on the machines for five minutes between sets. There was one fellow at our gym who actually read magazines and books between sets.

Pet Peeve #5: Following up from the last pet peeve, it drives me crazy when people sit on the machines playing with their iPods and cell phones.

Pet Peeve #6: People who have wear iPods and dance and/or sing during their workouts. They have no idea how loud and annoying they are. You would think they'd be embarrassed.

Pet Peeve #7: Almost as bad as the singers are the grunters. I'm talking about the extraordinarily loud grunters. You can hear them across the gym. It's really not necessary. You can breathe instead of grunting.

Pet Peeve #8: The ones who grunt for the entire neighborhood to hear are usually also the ones who use humongous weights and drop them when they can't do any more reps. I can't tell you how many times I nearly had a heart attack when taken by surprise by crashing weights.

Pet Peeve #9: The people who come in pairs (or packs) and spend most of their time chatting instead of working out. I'm glad they are having a good time, but they are not serious.

Pet Peeve #10: People who have outrageous body odor. No further comment

What are your pet peeves? Post a comment here. It will be fun.