Strength Training Exercise

Building muscle strength is very important for long term health, and doesn't require lots of complex, expensive equipment. It does require some knowledge of the major muscles in your body and a little bit of planning.

Health Benefits of Strength Training

As people age they tend to lose large amounts of strength if they don't continue participating in strength building activities. By maintaining your strength as you get older you can decrease your chances of injuries, such as twisting ankles. By maintaining more muscle mass you are also less likely to become overweight, as muscles use more calories.

Strength training exercise can also help to prevent or delay osteoporosis. All people, both men and women start losing bone mass as they age. Decreased bone mass results in weak bones which can fracture easily. Many elderly people never recover from these breaks. As strength training exercise makes muscles stronger, it also cause bones to increase in mass and become stronger. So weight bearing exercise that builds muscle strength is essential to keeping your bones strong too. Also, calcium and vitaminD are needed to keep bones healthy.

Major Muscles of the Body

The human body has 650 muscles. However, there are only a few you really need to be familiar with to build up your strength. There are 7 major groups of muscles. These are the shoulder, back, chest, arms, abdominal, hip and leg muscles. Each of these groups has several muscles or muscle subgroups within them.

Strength Training Equipment

Free weights are great to use at home to build muscle strength. Dumbbells are the smaller ones you lift with one hand. While barbells are longer and you need to use both hands to lift them. Buying free weights of either type for use at home is much less expensive than a weight machine. Another good reason to use free weights such as dumbbells is that you can do many different exercises with them. In addition to free weights, exercise bands and tubes are also affordable for home exercise. And even better than inexpensive is - free! Many strength training exercises can be done with just your body alone - push-ups, set-ups, etc.

There are also many different weight machines available to use. Many of them look really complicated, but are not, once you are familiar with them. Many weight machines are expensive and are more likely to be found in a gym rather than a persons home. They are, however, many multi-gyms which are affordable for home use, although their quality is not usually on the same level as the commercial equipment found in gyms.

Strength Training Planning

People break up how they exercise in different ways. Some people only exercise certain muscle groups on some days, and other groups on other days. There are many possibilities depending upon your goals and time schedule. After around 8-10 weeks of regular strength training exercise it is possible to build a noticable amount of muscle strength.

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