RESISTANCE TRAINING BENEFITS
- josephplatt1979
- Jul 5, 2021
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 21, 2022
Resistance training exercises cause the muscles to contract against an external resistance with the expectation of increases in strength, power, hypertrophy, and or endurance. The resistance on the muscles can be dumbbells, your body weight, bottles of water, or any other object that causes the muscles to contract. Resistance training benefits you in having a healthy lifestyle.
Why do you do resistance training? We all know resistance training is good for us, and there are so many reasons to add resistance training exercises to your routine. Some people do it to build muscle, some to reach a goal, like being able to pick up our grandchildren. Maybe, it’s your way just to relax. Resistance training exercises offer disease and injury-related benefits as well. For instance, they can help in the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, also reducing low back pain or pain that occurs with arthritis and fibromyalgia. Whatever your reason, you deserve a big pat on the back just for doing it!
While exercises such as running and cycling are indeed effective for reducing body fat, these activities can simultaneously decrease muscle size, leading to weaker muscles and greater perceived weight loss, as muscle is denser than fat. But unlike endurance exercises, evidence shows resistance training not only has beneficial effects on reducing body fat but also increases muscle size and strength.
Any exercise where you push, pull, or otherwise try to work against some type of resistance can be considered resistance or strength training. Resistance is any force that makes the movement harder to perform. In its simplest form, resistance can be provided by moving your body against gravity.
There are many ways you can do resistance training exercises to strengthen your muscles, whether at home or at the gym. Different types of resistance training include:
Free weights – classic strength training tools such as dumbbells or barbells.
Weight machines – devices that have adjustable seats with handles attached either to weights or hydraulics.
Medicine balls – weighted balls.
Resistance bands – like giant rubber bands – provide resistance when stretched. They are portable and can be adapted to most workouts. The bands provide continuous resistance throughout a movement.
Your body weight – can be used for squats, push-ups and chin-ups. Using your body weight is convenient, especially when travelling or at work.
When we do resistance training exercises, our muscles will need more energy than they do when resting. This energy comes from our muscles’ ability to break down fat and carbohydrate (stored within the muscle, liver and fat tissue) with the help of oxygen. So, during exercise, we breathe faster and our heart works harder to pump more oxygen, fat, and carbohydrate to our exercising muscles.
What is less obvious, however, is that after we’ve finished exercising, oxygen uptake remains elevated to restore muscles to their resting state by breaking down stored fat and carbohydrates. This phenomenon is called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) – though more commonly known as the “after-burn effect”. It describes how long oxygen uptake remains elevated after exercise to help the muscles recover. The extent and duration of the after-burn effect are determined by the type, length, and intensity of exercise, as well as fitness level and diet. Longer-lasting exercise that uses multiple large muscles, performed to or near fatigue, results in higher and longer-lasting after-burn.
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Resistance training exercises can be effective for long-term weight control, too. This is because muscle size or amount of muscle you have dxplays a major role in determining resting metabolic rate (RMR), which is how many calories your body requires to function at rest. Resting metabolic rate accounts for 60-75% of total energy expenditure in non-exercising people, and fat is the body’s preferred energy source at rest. Increasing muscle size through resistance training increases RMR, thereby increasing or sustaining fat loss over time. However, it’s also important to control calorie intake to lose fat and sustain fat loss.
There are a few different ways to start a resistance training exercises program, either at a gym and hire a trainer or do your own program at home. Either way you choose, it's important to use good form and learn to perform each movement without compromising posture or alignment. Be sure to start slowly to avoid burnout and injury.
If you decide to do resistance training then some tips to follow are:
take it slow at first and give your body time to grow accustomed to the intense workouts.
Use compound movements as the more muscles engaged, the better. Isolation movements are less effective overall.
Train at the right frequency because training the same muscles too often leads to reduced muscle growth and can increase your risk of burnout.
Give your muscles between 48 and 72 hours to rest between resistance training.
Work with the right weight as too heavy, and you won't reach your rep goals. Too light, and your muscles won't make progress in terms of strength, tone, mass and/or endurance.
Work body parts on different days and this could be working your back on one day, work the legs the next day and then work chest on the day after that day. Going from upper and lower or from a push to a pull movement will allow at least 24 hours rest for body parts to recover. Find a program that suits you.
Here's what a beginner resistance training exercises program may look like:
Monday - upper body (chest, shoulders, upper back, and arms) - 1-2 sets of 8-10 reps
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - lower body (legs, hips, glutes (butt), and core) - 1-2 sets of 8-10 reps
Thursday - rest day
Friday - repeat upper body resistance training workout
Saturday - rest day
Sunday - repeat lower body resistance training workout
Resistance training exercises
THE SQUAT
The Squat is a lower body compound exercise and you can do the bodyweight version, without added resistance or with weights such as a barbell or dumbbell. The Squat exercise mainly targets the thighs, hamstring, glutes and core. It can also help with stability, ankle mobility, back muscles, calves, and other factors which play an important role when you are doing this exercise.
CHIN UP / PULL UP
Using all the big pulling muscles of the body including the back muscles, the shoulders and the arms. This a great exercise for firming, toning, building and strengthening all these muscle groups. As chins also use a lot of muscle then they are a great exercise for burning calories and assisting weight loss. And like the previous exercises the chin or pull up can be modified to suit most clients’ abilities.
DEADLIFT
The deadlift is a serious muscle builder as well as an all-round quality exercise. When appropriately loaded the deadlift uses more muscles than any other resistance exercise including all the lower body muscles, and the majority of the upper body muscles. As such it is great for burning calories, firming, toning and developing muscles, building strength and size and losing weight – all depending on how it is performed.
LUNGES
Using mostly the same muscles as the squat, lunges can help you develop lower-body strength and endurance. They’re also a great beginner move. When done correctly, lunges can effectively target your lower-body muscles without placing added strain on your joints. In a lunge, many muscles work to both mobilize and stabilize the body. The main muscle used in a lunge are the quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, calves, erector spinae and the core.
BENCH PRESS
The bench press is one of the most popular and widely used exercise to increase strength in the upper body and build chest muscle. The Bench Press is essentially an open chain version of the push up. It works all the same pushing muscles – the chest, shoulders and triceps. It’s the most effective exercise to gain upper-body strength and muscle mass because it’s the upper-body exercise you’ll lift most weight on.
SHOULDER PRESS
The shoulder press is one of the best exercises for strengthening your shoulders and upper back. The biggest benefactor of the shoulder press is the front portion of your shoulder muscle (anterior deltoid) but you'll also be working out your deltoids, triceps, trapezius and pecs. Because being upright requires balance, you also recruit the muscles in your core, including your abdominals and lower back.
BENT OVER ROW
The bent-over row is one of the most effective upper back exercises for stimulating muscle growth. Although the standard bent-over row mainly targets your forearms and upper back, variations can be used to include your biceps and lats as well. This exercise can be performed with a barbell or dumbbells.
BOTTOM LINE
There are too many physical, mental and overall health benefits to leave resistance training exercises out of your workout schedule. Resistance training exercises training may increase your weight slightly, but muscle is more dense than fat and takes up less space. So even though your body weight may increase, your body size may actually shrink. This creates a trimmer, more tone look. In addition, muscle helps you maintain a healthy metabolism by burning more calories than fat. So, building muscle with resistance training means that you will burn more calories all day long. This can help you lower your weight in the long run. Get started by getting in touch with a personal trainer, who can guide you through a safe an effective program or you can do your own research.
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