Tuesday, May 26, 2009

The Benefits of Strength Training

By USGSF Staff

Strength training is an important element of fitness and exercise. If you are trying to lose weight then it is essential that you incorporate some strength training activities into your routine. Losing weight is about burning calories. It is about burning fat and one way to do that is to build your muscles. Basically the more muscle you develop the more energy you burn, resulting in greater weight loss.

Strength training does not have to be a daily grind of lifting weights in the gym. There are many classes or exercise programs you can follow that will help with building your muscles. Most gyms have classes like total body fitness or group power lifting. Typically these types of classes use many types of weight training equipment including barbells, hand weights and resistance bands. The typical class lasts for about an hour.

Over all it seems to be women seem to enjoy these types of strength training classes more than men. Men typically enjoy working out the muscle groups by adding bulk. Strength training classes help to shape and tone your muscles into lean mass without the bulk. In addition, since the instructor pushes you along during the class at a very rapid pace, there is a bit of cardiovascular benefit as well. A final note about going to an instructor lead strength training class: they can ensure that you are doing the exercises with the correct form to help you avoid injury.

Lets say you do not care for classes there are many exercises that you can do from home using just simple hand weights will do just fine, and there are many strength exercises that require no equipment like the simple pushup. Find a DVD to follow along to help you with your exercise. A good program to follow will help keep you on track, motivated and more likely to do the exercises correctly without injuring yourself.

Many people go to the gym to lift weights. Typical regimens include alternating days of upper body work with lower body work. For instance, on Monday and Thursday you might work your upper body, while on Tuesday and Friday you might work your lower body. This gives the muscles time to repair and grow between workouts. Most weight lifting programs involve lifting in sets. For instance you might do three sets of ten repetitions of bench press exercises. It really depends on your goals how many sets and repetitions of each that you attempt to do.

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