Exercise is the best medicine, so no matter what you are doing, keep at it and keep moving.
With that said, I see a lot of people say they do strength training for xx minutes two or three times per week.
What this tells me is that they aren’t actually strength training. Instead, they are exercising with weights.
I say this because when you are engaged in strength training, there is no particular time frame involved. Your session lasts as long as it takes to get through all of your working sets.
But I digress.
Those who suggest they are strength training for xx minutes are often seen performing exercises with dumbbells, kettlebells, cables and various machines.
They are also placing themselves in positions where it is not physically possible to lift much weight, as in the photo below.
Furthermore, their goals is primarily to get the heart rate up and burn calories. That’s not strength training. That’s exercising with weights.
Now don’t get me wrong… if you are not very strong, you will gain some strength performing this type of exercise.
However, let me clarify what is actually involved in strength training.
First, the definition of strength is the ability to produce force against an external resistance.
Therefore, strength training involves developing that ability.
When you watch people who make a living lifting heavy stuff, such as power lifters, Olympic lifters, and strongman competitors, they don’t primarily train with dumbbells and kettlebells.
Deadlift
The tool of choice is the barbell.
The barbell is the most efficient tool for strength training because it allows you to load the most amount of weight onto exercises that involve compound movements over the greatest range of motion.
The most common exercises involved in a strength training program will include squats, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press and power cleans.
Some machine exercises allow you to load significant weight as well, such as a leg press, but they won’t allow you to train as much muscle mass as you can with the barbell exercises.
Why do I make this distinction?
As I mentioned, any exercise is good.
However, if you are reading this article, you are likely somewhat close to my age or older.
Therefore, strength training is something you need to focus on to avoid age related muscle loss and bone density.
If you are completely new to strength training, or exercising with weights, you will increase your strength by doing some of the exercises with dumbbells, kettlebells and resistance bands.
However, those tools will not be very efficient, and the older we are, the more efficiency we want in our training.
What many people fail to understand is that you don’t try to start lifting heavy weight right away.
There is a process you must go through first, which starts with conservative weights and learning the movement patterns.
Then you try to increase the weight in small increments every workout for as long as you can, while holding the number of sets and reps constant.
After a matter of just a few months, the weight on the bar will go up significantly, which means you are building strength and muscle efficiently.
Eventually, you’ll have gained enough strength where it will require more complex training to continue to increase your strength.
You’ll then have a solid foundation of strength in place upon you can continue to build.
And that is what will give a much better chance at staying out of the senior living facility if you live past 80!
If you want to learn more, I encourage you to check out my Champion of Aging training program.
Now, get to work!
Leave A Comment