need good science on weight lifting

April 20, 2004 2:58 PM

I'm interested in finding good, scientific, non-biased information on weight lifting. Almost everything I seem to find online and in print is either unsupported or linked somehow to supplement manufacturers. Where can I find real deal?
posted by tirade to Health & Fitness (11 answers total)

I recommend Hardgainer. If anything they're antagonistic towards supplements (and will kick you out if you talk about steroids)
posted by substrate at 3:03 PM on April 20, 2004

Maybe an online weight lifting community since their science is the posting threads and comments.
posted by thomcatspike at 3:05 PM on April 20, 2004

More people should know about Entrez, it's been amazingly resourceful for me.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 3:23 PM on April 20, 2004

Response by poster: Hardgainer is kind of what I was talking about though. They're giving admittedly contrarian advice and the site (and the movement itself, it seems) is run by a publisher. I don't know if they're right or wrong... which is my whole problem.
posted by tirade at 3:32 PM on April 20, 2004

arnold's guide to lifting was, afaik, at one point, the standard; but I'm sure I don't keep up with these things as much as other people do.

i do know that a lot of my friends who were bodybuilders/weightlifters swore by it for quite some time (some of who are now personal trainers).

i own the encyclopedia version and find it fairly useful in its discussions of various weight training excercises, and none of the training philosophy seems too out of line with what folks that i've talked to seem to believe.

for online stuff, i don't think you can go too wrong with some of the usenet faqs on the subject.
posted by fishfucker at 3:37 PM on April 20, 2004

A while ago, there was a link on the blue (I think) to a U.S. Army manual on hand to hand combat. On the same website were manuals for a bunch of other things, some restricted, some not. With that in mind, perhaps it makes sense to look in .mil domains for military manuals on fitness and lifting?
posted by tss at 3:43 PM on April 20, 2004

Not sure what you're looking for in particular, but the ExRx weight training section is pretty good reference material and hard to find on Google in between all the pill and book pushers. Particularly good is the exercise and muscle directory which has helpful animated gifs demonstrating the exercises.
posted by frenetic at 5:49 PM on April 20, 2004

wow, frenetic, that exercise and muscle directory is great! I found all sorts of cool new exercises to do with my barbells in there. Awesome link, thanks!
posted by vorfeed at 6:12 PM on April 20, 2004

I own A Practical Approach To Strength Training, and while I haven't really used it (I don't lift much) it seems solidly supported by science. It's written by a guy at Princeton and there is a 15 page bibliography which appears to consist mostly of pointers to journal articles.
posted by callmejay at 7:33 PM on April 20, 2004 [1 favorite]

The ExRx page references the American College of Sports Medicine, which has a Health and Fitness Page. It appears to have some solid information, especially the comments page.

Please let us know if you find anything else.
posted by ajr at 10:26 AM on April 21, 2004

Great links guys...and a good question. I've been working out constantly for a few months, trying to lose the baby weight, but all I'm doing is getting bigger...solid, grant you...but still, I'm bulking, which is not what I wanted. These resources should help me figure out what I'm doing wrong, and how to go about getting longer and leaner, rather than bulkier and heavier. :)
posted by dejah420 at 10:51 AM on April 21, 2004