Strength Training Made Simple
If I only had a dollar for every time I’ve heard, “I just want to “tone” my muscles so I’ll do more reps and less weight”. Or my favorite, “I don’t want to look like a body builder so I don’t want to lift anything heavy”. If I had a dollar every time I heard these justifications, I would be sitting on a beach in the Bahama’s counting my money and enjoying the surf.
Here’s the real question? What’s your goal? Weight training principles depend on your goal and the plan will be based on those goals. Here are four goals to think about: Increase strength, increase endurance, improved power, and increased bulk.
Each of these goals address improving the muscular structure of your body in different ways. For example strength training is built off of the principles of actually increasing muscle fibers, improving bone mass, and offering increased metabolism and improved weight loss. A goal of improved power is geared toward exerting body strength to perform tasks and activities and specifically athletic related activities. Increasing endurance has both an aerobic and anaerobic goal that will allow you to improve strength AND improve your stamina. Finally increasing overall bulk is reserved for those who want to dramatically increase muscle mass.
Generally speaking a healthy workout routine should include strength training (as described above) to increase muscle, aerobic activities to improve endurance, and stretching routines to stretch the muscles and improve flexibility. Specific goals related to power, endurance, and building bulk are generally reserved for those who have specific fitness and training goals. General strength training is something that the general population should be engaging in to ensure a healthy mind and body for life.
Let’s take a moment to talk about strength training and define how it should be conducted properly to ensure that general strength is being addressed. “Toning” your muscles is long thought of the way women should strength train. Not sure what your definition of toning is but in order for you to show muscle tone, have the strength to perform everyday tasks, and look great you have to lift heavy weights. By lifting a 5 lbs weight over and over you may feel the burn but it isn’t doing anything to actually build the muscle, it is just making it tired. In order to actually build muscle, burn fat, and have a great “toned” body, you have to lift heavy weights and perform fewer repetitions. High reps just don’t work because they aren’t encouraging the muscle to get larger and you aren’t doing enough cardio in that movement to make the fat burn off either. So toned body = heavy weights.
Here is a chart devised to show the difference in your workout plans to achieve one of the weight training programs to meet your goals and pay particular attention to the Strength column for general fitness goals. Need more convincing? Try it. I guarantee you won’t look like a body building by lifting heavy weights and what do you have to lose other than unwanted fat.
| Variable | Training goal | |||
| Strength | Power | Bulk | Endurance | |
| Load (% of 1 rep max) | 80-90 | 45-55 | 60-80 | 40-60 |
| Reps per set | 1-5 | 1-5 | 6-12 | 15-60 |
| Sets per exercise | 4-7 | 3-5 | 4-8 | 2-4 |
| Rest between sets (mins) | 2-6 | 2-6 | 2-5 | 1-2 |
| Duration (seconds per set) | 5-10 | 4-8 | 20-60 | 80-150 |
| Speed per rep (% of max) | 60-100 | 90-100 | 60-90 | 60-80 |
| Training sessions per week | 3-6 | 3-6 | 5-7 | 8-14 |
| Table reproduced from Siff, 2003[9] | ||||
First let’s define walking and running. Walking is the act of moving at a pace where one foot is always in contact with the ground. Running actually puts you in flight and for a brief period neither foot is in contact with the ground. Either exercise can provide cardio vascular benefits and burn calories but there are subtle differences that might tip the scale in favor of running depending on your desired outcome.
stop at every tree and fire hydrant to sniff where the last dog has been, you aren’t burning the calories you think you might be and forget about any cardiovascular benefits. For walking OR running to provide the overall health benefits for your heart, a consistent moderate or high intensity workout should be expended for a minimum of 20 – 60 minutes. The longer your stride during a walk or run will increase the intensity and prove to give you the most benefit and moving your entire body during the walk with increase that blood flow and oxygen delivery opportunities. So in summary, walking will burn calories and if the walk is brisk enough will provide cardiovascular fitness. Running will burn calories in a shorter time, provide cardiovascular fitness, improve blood pressure and cholesterol levels, increase muscle mass, and dip into the fat stores faster once the initial sugar is burnt off.
