If you hope to experience and maintain any lasting effective results from exercising then what you are doing must challenge the body over and beyond what it is presently experiencing doing everyday tasks and activities.
In truth, when we exercise, we are attempting to cause the body to adapt to a specific imposed stimulus. In other words, your body must have a valid reason to adapt…it must be forced to adapt.
This isn’t a ticket to give up all the recreational activities such as golf that you may enjoy. What it is saying is that these activities alone do nothing that requires the body to change…to adapt…it simply engages within its normal capabilities at the fun comfortable low intensity level.
What you need to do rather than give up any present activates that you love is to add to your present daily activities more challenging workouts…the kind that take your body to the next level of fitness.
Try looking at it this way…you perform challenging strength training exercises to receive the maximum physical benefits from exercising and you enjoy maximum fun with your favorite recreational activities. They each play an important role to your health and vitality.
Bottom line is this: recreational activities do not provide the stimuli needed in order to produce the benefits associated with proper exercise.
There are six major factors of a proper exercise program that must be addressed:
- Muscular strength, size and endurance
- Bone strength
- Cardiovascular efficiency (heart and lungs)
- Boost in flexibility
- Body leanness is achieved
- Increased resistance to any type of injury
Any exercise that is not producing enough muscular fatigue does not stimulate muscular growth. With that in mind, let’s review the typical strength training terminology that you will need to understand in order to produce the kind of challenging strength training exercise your body demands.
Exercise: In strength training this means a complete movement of them muscle group being used. An example would be the bench press exercise.
Repetitions or reps: Performing one full movement of any given exercise from start to prescribed end-point and back to the original starting point is called a repetition. Reps that you perform with each exercise may require between 8-12 repetitions in order to be effective.
Sets: Any fixed number of reps or repeated exercise movements is considered a “set.” There are generally about 1-3 sets for each exercise routine with a pause in between the sets of about 1-1.5 minutes. This pause is what allows your muscles to retain enough strength to perform and complete the next set of reps effectively.
Positive phase: The phase part of exercise requires your muscles to contract. For example…when you perform a bench press, the positive phase is when you are pressing the weight upwards away from your body.
Negative phase: This phase is when you slowly allow the weight to return to the original home position. Using the bench press example again, the negative phase is when you slowly lower the weight back down to your chest.
Overload: In order to experience any gains in strength you must be stimulate the muscle more than it is used to.
Progression: The performing muscle must continue to work against gradually increasing resistance in order to meet the required “overload.” You can’t stay at the same weight level forever or your muscles are not challenged. You will need to consistently increase the amount of weight you are using over a certain period of time if you want to keep progressing. Stay at the same strength training weight-resistance and your body stays there too.
Intensity: Refers to the amount of weight you are lifting and indicates how difficult the exercise is to complete. The correct level of intensity may be the most important factor towards efficient, effective strength training. For the most part, the higher or greater your intensity the better your strength gains will be. However, it is equally important that you find the right balance between being careful and cautious when exercising to prevent injury (you are no good to anyone with any injury) and consistently progressing towards increased strength. Without a doubt, increasing the weight/intensity of what you are lifting is key to your progression and success with strength-training of any kind.
When you have worked your muscles to the point of fatigue…when you can no longer perform any more reps you have reached “high intensity.”
All this relates to the overload principle that states in order to increase muscular size and strength your muscle must be stressed or “overloaded” with a workout load that is above and beyond its present capacity and trigger an adaptive response (muscular growth).
A general rule of thumb that you can follow in selecting your weight is to choose a weight that you are able to life using proper form at least 10 times with effort…but no more than 15 reps. If you can lift your weight beyond 15 reps, you are working with a weight that is too light.
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