Fitness is a concept that requires many different exercise techniques and strategies to achieve your individual goals. Strength training uses the body’s muscles to provide resistance while using weights.
The specific actions performed while muscles are under tension stimulate muscle growth, power, strength, and overall endurance to help you get in the best shape of your life. To learn more about strength training basics and benefits, continue reading below.
Breakdown of Strength Training Movements
Different types of strength training movements prompt specific categorization. These categories provide a more thorough breakdown based on muscle groups used, movement type, and exertion rates.
Compound Movements
Compound exercises often involve using various muscles group and joints to maximize the amount of weight lifted at one time. Examples of compound movements include squats, bench presses, and deadlifts.
Isolated Movements
The difference between compound and isolated exercises is the number of muscle groups used to perform a movement. Unlike compound movements, isolation exercises usually centralize attention toward a specific area as rehabilitation or strength reinforcement.
Dumbbell activities, like bicep curls, classify as isolated movements as they focus on the elbow flexion to target muscles, like biceps brachii and brachioradialis.
Push
“Push” exercises center around the idea of utilizing muscle groups to perform a pushing action. Commonly worked areas include the chest, shoulders, quadriceps, and triceps.
Pull
“Pull” workouts offer the opposite of “push” movement. These exercises target lats, biceps, hamstrings, and forearms to enable you to bring the weight toward your body.
Benefits of Strength Training
Strength training exercises offer effective ways to maintain fitness, improve mobility and overall health, and boost confidence. Apart from facilitating muscle growth, here are other ways weight lifting can benefit your life:
- Balances blood sugar
- Reduces risk of injury
- Improves cardiovascular endurance
- Reduces the chance of developing a chronic illness
- Improves mental health
How To Structure a Strength Workout
It’s vital to know how to structure a strength workout to maximize gains throughout your fitness journey. When training upper body muscles, consider focusing on larger areas, like the chest and back, before shifting towards accessory movements that target triceps and biceps.
When scheduling a full-body workout session, you’ll want to train the lower body muscles with squats and deadlifts before moving on to upper body training. Doing so ensures that you target surrounding areas without bouncing around from platform to bench.
While intimidating to try initially, weight lifting can be a game-changer to your daily fitness routine. It helps to know the strength training basics and benefits before incorporating movements and consulting your physician before lifting heavier weights.