Strength Training - Understanding More About It

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

09 Jan 2007 08:41 AM

When it comes to getting in shape, we have discussed that you need to balance a trio of activities including flexibility, aerobic and strength training in order to develop your body to its fullest potential and to build good health across the board. Each part of the trio is an important component to your overall health. Aerobic exercise teaches your body to and your muscles to utilize oxygen with greater efficiency. Strength training builds the muscle mass in your body and helps you to burn calories more efficiently. Flexibility training teaches your body to be suppler and gives you greater freedom of movement.

When you look at it that way, you begin to understand why it's important to engage on all three forms of exercise.

Strength Training

There are a variety of ways to strength train. You can use free weights or weight machines. You may also employ a form of resistance training using bands and your own body. If you work out in a gym on weight machines, you will discover that most of them have laid out their equipment in a pattern that encourages circuit training. The Curves for Women program utilizes resistance training on a circuit along with elevating your heart rate to provide you with both cardio and strength training in one continuous circuit. They also encourage stretching exercises both before and after the circuit in order to promote flexibility.

Different Groups of Strength Training

Most of us tend to think of strength training as bodybuilding, but bodybuilding is only one aspect of strength training. Among your options in this area are weight lifting, weight training, strength training, power lifting and competitive bodybuilding.

There are similarities as well as differences in these groups of strength training. Before you can identify what interests you, you need to know more about them.

• Weight Lifting, Weight Training & Strength Training - are subtly different from each other, but share the unique characteristics of strength training via different methods of resistance training. You may lift free weights, you may work out on weight machines or you may employ resistance bands or your own weight to build your muscles and strength. This is the most common form of strength training that we are advised to use to help build tone and strength - the goal is not necessarily to develop washboard abs or to be an Atlas in the back of a magazine but to hone your body's personal strength and to help burn excess calories
• Power Lifting - This is an Olympic level sport that challenges a person to concentrate and lift the most weight that is possible for them, usually pushing them beyond their limits as they increase the weight for one powerful lift
• Body Building - Bodybuilding is a competitive sport and what most of us are likely to associate with strength training. Bodybuilding is what Arnold Schwarzeneggar engaged in when he first came to the United States. It involves creating a great amount of definition in the muscles and is based on symmetry and definition. It's about how the body looks, not necessarily about what the body can lift.

Power lifting, competitive bodybuilding and weight lifting are not advisable for teenagers who are still developing their muscles to begin with. These types of activities can lead to serious injury in developing joints, bones and muscles. We'll be exploring more on strength training over the next few days to help you learn how to engage in your own strength or weight training program.

Do you strength train now?

Related Articles:

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Personal Fitness - Make it Fit Your Personality

10 Reasons You Should Strength Train

Aerobic versus Anaerobic

Weight-Training and Weight-Training Safety

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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