The Benefits of Strength Training

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So, you want to get strong but don’t know where to start with all the online programs available. You’ve been told, sold or shown the extremes of what strength workouts can achieve. However, you don't know if you have what it takes and don’t really understand how strength training truly benefits you? You shouldn't stress on this. We're here to help and one of our aims, to enable clients to reach their personal physical performance.

Well let’s take a peak under the hood and see what it’s really all about.

Lets not confuse matters, training for strength is undoubtedly the most effective type of exercise for fat loss but it’s importance in life goes far beyond that in creating a resilient human.

Health Benefits of Strength

The sexy stuff, we tend to mention these first rather than looking good in your swimmers. These are the true important ones that following your workout plan will really benefit, but we can kind of guarantee some huge confidence boosts too.  

Decreased risk of Cardiovascular Disease

Starting with one of the biggest benefits and since it's the worlds biggest killer. Reducing your chances of cardiovascular disease should be at the top of your list too. You'll gain many cardiac improvements due to strength training, the increase in heart strength due to intensity created during heavy lifting, increased muscle mass allowing for higher levels of mitochondria, reduced levels of atherogenesis (plaque in the arteries) and reduced blood pressure in prehypertensive individuals (or keeping you from becoming hypertensive in the first place). You can also check our article on Types of fat and the role in health to understand issues associated to cardiovascular health.  

Better management of Blood Sugar Levels

Insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes is in your news app daily. Why? It's one of the silent ones, it's playing the long game of inflammation against you, increasing all cause mortality. However, strength training due to adding muscle mass and reducing fat mass, has be shown to reduce the chances of becoming insulin resistant and has even shown to return individuals to healthy level insulin sensitivity within 3 months of strength programming. 

Improved Brain Function

We're guessing you've heard the concept of all brawn and no brain, well that's not true. If you're following a strength training routine. Weight lifting has been shown not only to keep intact but improve subregions of the hippocampus aligned with brain degeneration aligned with dementia. 

Improved Mood

As mental health is on the tip of everyones tongue due to its prevalence in today's society, anything that can help improve this, is something we should be doing. Studies have shown that we can increase mood, decrease anxiety and increase physical self efficacy all from a strength training routine. 

Health benefits of strength

• reduced risk of cardiovascular disease
• reduced risk of hypertension
• Improved brain function
• improved mood and decreased anxiety
• reduced chance of type 2 diabetes and ability to reverse this

The Physical Adaptations

We can say internal health, and feeling good is all we care about but no matter what anyone says. We all like to look good too. Understanding that strength training can improve all of our physical attributes, is important to us. Ps. some of these physical overlap and give health benefits on top. Double Win!

Maintaining Muscle Tissue

Maintaining and gaining muscle tissue is hugely important for health and wellness, and as mentioned before becoming a resilient human. However our caveat here is, if you're looking to get swole, we're not the right team for you but of course email us and we can help find you the team to get your fitness goals. 

Probably something we should have mentioned at the start but still good here. Why do all these adaptions occur? It's due to strength training causing your body stress, so when your body the great adaptor undergoes stress in this case, strength workouts. It sends signals to hopefully reduce the stress next time and build a better stronger you. Hence, why you add muscle mass and strength when you lift heavy things. Maintaining and gaining muscle tissues has been linked to overall longevity, and since it's easier to add mass when you're younger due to hormones in your favour, you should definitely contact us today.

Increased Strength

Increasing your strength will not only allow the simple tasks in life to feel much easier like making sure your kids can't beat you up during rough and tumble and that your back can hold up in your office chair all day long or you can actually do the things you want to at the weekends, but you also get the knowledge that strength in particular grip strength has a better prediction on cardiovascular health than systolic blood pressure. 

Improved Bone Health

Improving your bone density seems like a strange one to mention to most people, however when you understand how much of an issue this can bring in later life and the difficulty you'll have in building back from an already weakened position. To increase bone density we know that resistance training offers the most effective way to increase progressive overload on your bones. Why is this necessary, it's been shown in studies that only with load bearing heavier than normal daily demand will induce the factors needed to develop bone density.  Many females will have seen, read or have family members tell them of issues postmenopause, and the risks of osteoporosis.As we say at Resilient Human, “Stronger, Longer Living will increase quality of life.

Reduced Body Fat

As with all training you'll reduce your chances of building body fat, as you'll be burning more energy and usually as you're exercising, it tends to go along with healthier eating habits. However, due to the benefits of your great workout routine, you're also adding that muscle mass, which will increase your basal metabolic rate and also create a higher metabolic demand when you move too. So now, you'll a higher daily energy expenditure and be able to have more sustainability to maintaining a health body fat percentage. If you want to know more about healthy blody fat percentages, check out out article on Body fat and what it really means.  

Decreased Risk of Injury

As Resilient Humans we strive for pain free living and strength training is the gateway to this, and decreasing or chances of injury in the process. Here's a good study on sports injuries, however most of us aren't competitive sports persons, but of course sport injuries happen due to a range of different reasons and knowing that strength training can prevent it for them, shows that to go around your daily life, should be a hugely reduced chance. Let's take the risk of falling as we age into consideration, the chance of death from this is 64 in 100000 population. However, if we add muscle, bone density, and the coordination we'll get from our workouts, i'm pretty sure that's a fitness goal to aim for. 

I want those strength gains now.

That's fine, and we were all there but the boring part to those that hate training, it takes time, like the rest of the things that you like in your life. You need a commitment to yourself and to you online coach if you want the fitness and health goals you've set yourself. Of course it's easy for us to say, we love training, that's why we choose personal training as a profession. Letting you in on a secret, we've all had coaches, we've all had mentors and we all have a lot of friends in this industry, so like you in your business, we have bonds with people that support us and helps us push to our goals. A small amount of people make it alone but, support is the biggest thing you can find when setting yourself some new ambitions. 

Training like many things is simple when you know it, turn up and do it repetitively, being consistent is the number 1 part of your training plan that will get you those results. If you follow 3 training sessions per week for 4 weeks, you'll feel different, within 12weeks you'll know you're stronger and then each 12-16 weeks you'll have noticeable differences to the previous. Be prepared it will slow to every 6 months and then to every 12 months the longer you stay on this path, however by this time you'll be a completed different person and know what you've achieved will be something to be hugely proud of. 

Here's some basics you'll see in your fitness programs. 

Movements and Equipment

• Multi joint movements known as compound exercises, squat, deadlift, bench press, pull up
• Single joint movements known as isolation exercises, hamstring curl, calf raises, bicep curls
• Machines, best to isolate muscles or muscle groups, great for specific focus
• Barbells, great for compound movements and adding heavy load to improve overall strength
• Dumbbells, compound and isolation movements and great for adding stability to your single arm
• Kettlebells, generally used in compound movements, great for strength, metabolic and movement variations 
• Cables, compound and isolation movements great for adding instability to your core
• Speciality kit, maces clubs, boxes, farmers carry, landmine, viking press, great for having fun and playing around, plus all the other health and strength benefits. 

Sets, Reps and Tempo.

Looks like algebra to most of us, until someone sits down teaches you how to read a strength workout.

4 x [6-8(ea)], @30x1, :75sec

• 4 is your sets, meaning 4 rounds of this 1 exercise
• 6-8 is your reps, so when you set up, you'll do 6-8 of them, pretty simple (ea) means each side, so if a split leg movement or the like, you'll have 6-8 to do on both sides. 
• @30x1, now this gets most people and the first questions 30 what? split them up and think of them as 4 parts of 1 movement. Number 1: always the eccentric or the lengthening of the muscle, number 2: always the pause after the eccentric, number 3: the concentric and genrally the powerful part of the movement hence the X for explode and finally number 4: another pause section after the concentric. *30x1 is 3sec eccentric, 0 sec pause, xplode concentric and 1sec pause after
• finally 75sec is your rest after the set, where you can breath and gather your thoughts before the next set. 

Strength gains are not simply made from lifting heavy weights alone but by stimulating the body to adapt through a variety of exercises and rep rages to elicit Hypertrophy - The Increase and growth of Muscle Tissue.

Understanding the basics of reps, and tempo and sets and rest. Help us to know what you'll feel in each training session from intensity vs volume. Intensity is how hard you work on a given rep, and generally relates to heavier loading, however give someone a lighter load and a high tempo @50x2, then the load might be light but the intensity has increase due to the reduced speed of the rep. This is the special way your online personal trainer can play with the way you work and guide you to a healthier and stronger body over the others in your gym smashing it out, or never increasing their weights.

This has to be our favourite way of training and we wish we had all known about it the day we stepped in the gym, by creating and playing with variables we can increase strength and capacity faster than just trying to put heavier weight on us and also reduce any chance of injury and give overall better outcomes. 

Just a little play for you to think about, if a client has 50kg on their back for 10 back squats, @20x0 they've work for around 30seconds at 50kg of constant load. Now ask them to try to them 10 back squats with 40kg @51x0 and see the level of intensity sky rocket with the weight being lighter. 3 reasons, total time 70secs for sets, 5sec load on the way down is horrible, 1 sec pause in the bottom means you need to restart out of the hardest position each time. 

These tools are your personal trainers tools to increase the progressive overload on your body without just increasing weight and increasing intensity until you don't want to come back. Creating Resilient Humans is more than just working hard, it's working consistently smarter for longer. 

To start with us, click here and if you're still not convinced jump on a call.

Resilient Human

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