another topic that came up a lot in the old forum.

we all pretty much agree that strength training is an essential part of staying fit and healthy. if you are trying to lose weight, it is especially important, as you will be burning more fat the more muscle you have.

bring out your links, tips and thoughts on strength and resistance training, whether it is weights, bodyweight, machines or just good oldfashioned shoveling, and we can gather them here.

• wikipedia/weight_training - well, duh. wikipedia on weight training.
• stumptuous.com - stumptuous weight training for women. THE resource on training, eating and everything related to it. targeted for women, but great for the guys too. run, don't walk, to this utterly fabulous website.
• exrx.net - resources on weight training and bodybuilding. very ahhhnold, but don't let the creepy buff dudes keep intimidate you. most famous for its extensive (endless?) library of
• exercise instruction with gif animations of said creepy buff dudes showing you how we do.
• shapefit.com - the best site I've found for doing weights. It has tons of variations so when you need to mix things up you can, and if you don't have access to certain machines or equipment (my gym dosn't have a barbell) you can find alternatives AND they all have a little animated gif so you know exactly how to do them.

http://www.shapefit.com/ is the best site I've found for doing weights. It has tons of variations so when you need to mix things up you can, and if you don't have access to certain machines or equipment (my gym dosn't have a barbell) you can find alternatives AND they all have a little animated gif so you know exactly how to do them.

i'll add it to the first post, so we can make a big list.

Does anyone know of a link that will instruct me on how to do pilates?

pilates is difficult to do correctly without instruction and correction, but these sites show you some basic exercises to try out.

http://www.lhj.com/lhj/category.jhtm...es_Pilates.xml
http://www.savasayoga.com/PILATES_POSES.html

other than that, if you google pilates, you can read a lot about the principles of pilates and find classes near you.

if you were prone to crime, a lot of pilates instruction videos can also be illegally aquired. kittyradio recommends that you don't download these with bittorrent or other file sharing programs. i mean, would you steal a movie?