Resistance Training - Strength Training for Yesterday Today and Tomorrow

There was a time, in the not-too distant past, that many people associated “exercise” with aerobic exercises only. Aerobic exercise uses large muscles groups, in a rhythmic fashion over an extended period of time. Running, cycling, swimming and the like, enhance cardiorespiratory fitness, while strengthening the heart and lungs.

Consistent retesting of athletes cardiorespiratory fitness by a number of researchers, proved that aerobic exercise could enhance and maintain cardiorespiratory fitness, but without strength training program, the participants became weaker by the year.

In the early nineties, the American College of Sports Medicine amended its aerobic exercise recommendations to include resistance training. That recommendation remains and includes: resistance training twice a week, utilizing all the major muscle groups, for two sets at between 8 – 12 repetitions. This regimen has been proven to increase muscular strength and maintain it.

Many adults begin losing muscle tissue and gaining body fat in their thirties, particularly if they’re inactive. Increased muscle strength provides many benefits, not the least of is, the ability to perform your day-to-day activities more easily. Simple tasks like lifting grocery bags, shoveling show, or even lifting your children or grandchildren, will be easier.

Resistance training, by definition, is the process of challenging a skeletal muscle with an unaccustomed stimulus (load), so that certain muscle tissue adaptations occur. Resistance training results in increased muscle force, strength, and often increased muscle mass. Generally, resistance training should be rhythmical, controlled, performed at slow to moderate speed, and involve a full range of motion.

Resistance training can be performed in many ways, from utilizing one’s own body weight calisthenics to more complex selectorized machines. Machine-based training provides a high degree of safety and ease, in terms of establishing to correct technique to work the desired group. Conversely, free weights are relatively inexpensive, easily accessible, and may provide additional beneficial adaptations for coordination and balance. Additionally, dynamic weight training techniques can be utilized, to more closely mirror our activities of daily living, thereby strengthening the exact muscle groups we utilize in our daily life.

A program for general overall strength development will be very different than a resistance program designed specifically to enhance a sports skill. A properly-designed strength training program should be designed to address your particular objectives. From lifting children, carrying groceries or driving a golf ball farther, a properly designed strength training program can assist each of us with the activities we must, or like to do.

For people who are already active, an equally important benefit is injury prevention. Many musculoskeletal injuries, especially those related to routine exercise, are due in part to muscle weakness, and imbalances, as well as joint instability, which strength training may correct.

It never too late! Various research studies have quantified and documented how extremely effective strength training can be. Strength increases of 80% and higher, have been documented in participants of 80 and 90 years of age. Just think what two sessions a week in a variety of resistance training activities can do for you.

We absolutely know it’s never too late to get stronger.

So, what are you waiting for?