Strength Training - Build Muscle and Burn FatStrength training, or weight/resistance training, is now an undisputed staple in any comprehensive exercise program as it once was an activity primarily associated with athletics and sports. Strength Training is very essential and even critical to your body's overall metabolism, health and well-being. It is also called weight training, bodybuilding, or resistance training. By definition, it refers to the amount of force a muscle can exert in a single all-out effort (1 Rep Max/1 RPM). Also, it refers to high amounts of resistance with less repetitions. In other words, heavy weight or resistance with less reps to build muscular strength, size and power. The right amount of strength training performed regularly can double and even triple your strength and is very beneficial to your health as you age, helping to decrease or slow down muscle loss.
When lifting weights, we challenge the body's muscles, bones, joints and connective tissues to do something they are not used to doing. We are exerting a force, or a controlled stressor, that causes damage to muscle fibers. It sounds bad, but it isn't because they are mostly microscopic, tiny tears in the muscle fibers that need to be repaired in order to grow stronger, longer, leaner and tougher. This is where the body's immune system gets a boost and improves over time because it's called into action to send specialized cells, called leukocytes and macrophages, that break down the damaged and healthy muscle cells before sending in more immune cells to create newer, thicker, stronger, more durable proteins to replace what was damaged. When performed correctly and consistently, you can see how the body must respond over time to the stress applied to it by strength training. These actions instantly elevate your metabolism by 5 - 10 percent. The bigger you are, the more muscle fibers you damage during a workout, the greater the metabolic effect, or afterburn. This means your body has to burn more calories to perform the work it needs in order to repair the damaged muscle cells. This is also why the body develops what is called
Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness.
For every pound of muscle, your body burns up to 50 extra calories each day. This is the most important part of strength training! As you build lean muscle tissue, increase muscle mass, increase muscle size, strength and power, you will be able to work out harder and increase the amount of calories you burn each day, both during the training session and most importantly after you workout in recovery; even while you rest and sleep!
If the most important thing about strength training is to boost your metabolism, or maximize the afterburn effect, so that you are not only building and maintaining muscular size and strength but your body is burning more calories throughout each day, then your focus must be on performing a combination or variety of intensities. Here's the varied intensity training approach: - high-intensity and low repetitions - moderate-intensity and moderate repetitions - low-intensity and high repetitions By varying your approach with strength training, you will inevitably build more strength, size and power in less time and maintain those improvements over the long-term. It keeps your body always guessing and it never gets a chance to fully adapt to what you are doing to it. Therefore, the metabolic response, or afterburn effect, remains high. Typical training programs say to lift a certain amount of weights 8, 10, or 15 times, which only train two of the three muscle fiber types. This is an unbalanced approach to strength training. Ever wonder why so many you see at a gym or fitness center that look the same as they did when you first saw them and they are still doing the same workout or workouts that they did on their first day? Here's the answer and solution to why: Most people are doing it wrong! Most people do not approach exercise the right way; it's a system or science that you have to learn, perform faithfully, and repeat over time until it becomes a lifestyle. Most think they are doing it correctly because they read a magazine or they hear about something from someone, which is non-sense. Here's where we can help you to learn what you need to know so that you have the tools and knowledge to make the best choices for you when it comes to exercise and your health. To get the results you want and boost your metabolism you must have a balanced approach by using the varied intensity training approach. A balanced approach helps prevent injuries due to muscular imbalances. Over time you will correct those muscular imbalances target all types of muscle fibers, which include: - Type I: slow twitch (long, dense and darker fibers used for strength, endurance and stamina) - Type IIa: fast/slow twitch combination (a mixed percentage of both Type I and II) - Type IIb: fast twitch (short, thick and white fibers used for speed, power, and explosiveness) Type I and Type IIa are targeted by training at: - moderate intensity and moderate repetitions (2-3 sets and 8-12 reps) - low intensity and high repetitions (1-2 sets and 15 or more reps) Here's what most training programs are missing; they do not train the Type IIb fast-twitch muscle fibers. Type IIb are targeted by training at: - high intensity and low repetitions (3-4 sets and 3-7 reps) The key to high intensity training is to choose a weight or resistance that allows you to perform good, quality repetitions and where you reach muscle fatigue within 3-7 reps. This type of training forces you to target all of your muscle fibers and therefore, maximize the metabolic effect on your body and accelerate your immune and nervous system to kick in high gear and build a stronger muscular and skeletal system. This is exactly the way athlete's train and you see how their bodies' look and how they perform! It's important to note here that although high intensity weight lifting with low repetitions does train all of your muscle fibers, it is very stressful to your nervous and immune systems. If you do it more than twice a week, you raise your risk of burnout and injury to joints and connective tissues. The secret to strength training is in the varied intensity training approach, where you mix up the weights/resistance and repetitions. This provides your program with: - variety: you never get bored doing the same workout more than once a week - intensity: you are tougher than you think - consistency: you keep up with your workouts and do your best each day These provides you with the right stimulus and rest period for effective muscular growth. Complete each phase of your training program for at least 4 weeks before adding more advanced exercises and intensity. It's important to change up the training program every 4-6 weeks in order to avoid the dreaded Plateau Effect. Here's a sample strength training schedule for the week: Monday: low intensity and high reps (15-25 reps) Tuesday: off; do some
interval cardio
Thursday: off; do some
interval cardio
Saturday:
do something fun with sports and recreation
Health Benefits and Effects of Strength Training: - Stress management - enhanced self-esteem - increases in physical capacity - injury prevention - rehabilitation - prevention of osteoporosis - pain management - weight loss and maintenance of weight loss - maintain and improve fat-free mass, or lean muscle mass
1. Always include a warm-up and cool down
- Compound exercises force you to use more muscle groups and connective tissues because you are working multiple joints with different ranges of motion. This also engages your core muscles, which include the abs and back, and a little bit of your chest, shoulders, and glutes all at the same time. These types of exercises cannot be performed on machines, which only isolate single muscle groups, but only with free weights: dumbbells, resistance bands, medicine balls, etc. The goal is to target as many muscle groups as possible to increase the metabolic response; so you have to work more than one joint at a time. Here's a list of some of the best compound exercises: - Bench press - Deadlifts - Rows - Squats- Overhead Shoulder Press- Lunges- Step-ups- Pushups- Pullups- Wood Choppers- Hanging Leg Raises 3. Follow principles of specificity, progression/overload to avoid plateau
- To ensure that you are using the maximum number of muscle fibers, lift the weights as quickly as you can while maintaining good, quality form, and lower the weight slowly with control. This means you do your best to execute each repetition in a clean, controlled and precise manner, not necessarily fast as in speed, but rather fast in explosiveness with control. You don't overdo it and you can't underdo it. This requires focus on each repetition; you don't just arbitrarily do it, but you peform each rep with the intention of getting better, stronger, faster, leaner, meaner and tougher! 5. Control weight/resistance through entire range of motion (ROM) - It's much better to execute each repetition at it's full range of motion. Guys, you need to let go of the ego here! We think we should lift the biggest and heaviest weight to get a better workout. This is wrong, because when we add more intensity in the form of weights/resistance to any exercise, we tend to decrease the range of motion in order to execute the reps. In other words, we are wasting time and putting ourselves at risk for injury and burnout. The best thing anyone can do when strength training is to find the weight/resistance that works for you and you alone. You perform the exercise with proper form and do the best you can on that day and complete the entire range of motion. If you have to lighten the load and reduce the resistance so that you can go deeper into each rep and throughout the range of motion of each joint, then do it because deep range of motion will work your muscles harder than using a lot of weight/resistance and only going halfway through the range of motion. This also works on improving your
flexibility,
decreasing risk of injury to muscles and connective tissues, and creating a more intense workout and higher metabolic effect in recovery.
Frequency: 2-3 days per week; non-consecutively (every other day) Intensity: varied intensity training approach Workout A - high-intensity and low repetitions Workout B - moderate-intensity and moderate repetitions Workout C - low-intensity and high repetitions Time/Duration: no more than 60 minutes; usually 30-45 minutes Type: Combination of compound exercises that you enjoy doing and have physician's approval for performing; engage multiple major muscle groups in workout session
You do not need a gym, fitness center, or any high costs of hiring someone to be your trainer. RECOMMENDED SITES: Click here if you are ready to learn more about which DVD workouts we recommend.
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