Many people may think that strength training is something that only suits the select few. However, the truth is that everyone can benefit from strength training, regardless of their starting point, whether you are young or old. Our body is designed for physical activities, and getting stronger brings many health benefits.
Strength training will make your muscles stronger, which in turn makes everyday life easier. Hiking, walking, jogging, etc. also become easier. Strength training will also increase your metabolism, and unlike moderate-intensity cardio, such as jogging, your metabolism will be maintained long after the actual strength training session is over (1, 2 ). In fact, certain types of strength training have been shown to have an increased effect on metabolism up to 24 hours after the end of the training session.
Your muscles are responsible for burning a lot of calories. You can think of the muscles as the body's engine. If you have weak muscles, it's like having a small engine, which consumes little fuel. If you have strong muscles, it's like having a bigger engine that consumes a lot of fuel. So when the muscles get stronger, this also increases the consumption of calories, also called basal metabolism. Basal burning is the number of calories you burn whilst resting. In other words, a stronger body will burn more than a weak, untrained body.
As a beginner, you often dread to start with something you feel you may not master. That's understandable. However, one hugely positive thing when it comes to strength training, is that as a beginner - this is when you will experience the most progression. You will increase more in muscle mass and become stronger faster. Once you have been doing strength training for a couple of years, the progression will take longer. This is worth noting, as it means you will probably see results much faster than you might think.
As a beginner, it can seem tempting to put together a super-advanced training program, created by a specialist who trains world-class athletes. This is not only unnecessary, but also potentially destructive. There are a few things that are important to keep in mind when you want to get stronger:
With the above 3 points in mind, we recommend picking out a few exercises that train the major muscle groups. We can divide these down to the following: legs, back, abdomen and chest. By training these, you activate and stimulate the largest muscle groups. You will therefore get the most out of the time and effort you put in. Because we do not choose too many exercises, it is also much easier to learn the right technique, keeping things simple is often more effective. This is also because you get to do more of each exercise, than if you were to vary between 20-30 exercises.
Another great way to train is a simple 20-minute session everyday. With high effort and intensity, a short session will be enough to make the muscle groups stronger and the body more vigorous. If your goal is to achieve a stronger body, more exercises will not be better. This is where "Keep it Simple" applies.
As you begin your strength training journey, you will become stronger and in turn it will be easier to master the exercises. In other words, you get better. Therefore, it is important to think about how you can challenge yourself further, so as not to stagnate. A great way to continue to challenge yourself is to go from executing the exercises slowly and controlled to explosive. For example, you would have done squats slowly up and down when you first started strength training. Once you have done that for a few weeks and feel you are mastering it, try to get up from the bottom as fast as you can. The next way to make squats more demanding is to push off the bottom with everything you got. In other words; a squat jump.
This explosive technique can be applied to all the exercises you do, except abdominal training, here we recommend that you always keep the motion slow and controlled. When exercising your abdomen, focus on breathing and contraction, not pace and explosiveness. Download our mini guide to super effective abdominal training HERE, and feel an incredible effect with simple techniques.
In order to see that you get stronger, it will be important to log your progress. This will also provide plenty of motivation. Often when you train, you might feel that you don't excel as fast as you want.
Let's say you do as many repetitions of each exercise as you can (apart from the abdominal exercises) in 1 minute per exercise. One round can look like this:
Squat: number of repetitions in 1 minute:
Pushups: number of repetitions in 1 minute:
Rowing: number of repetitions in 1 minute:
Situps: mostly focus on technique
Write down how many you managed each time you train. Over time, you will see that the number of repetitions you reach in 1 minute increases. Then when you can’t get your numbers any higher, you make the exercise harder, as explained above.
"About 70% of your progress comes from your diet," people often say. But, what does that really mean?
In a weight loss phase, diet is the magic switch that helps you lose weight. However, a healthy and well-balanced diet doesn't just apply when you want to lose weight. It is also important for your strength training. Of course, we`re not saying that you just need to eat healthy to get stronger. The reason why you should focus on eating healthy when you want to get stronger is because in addition to rest, the diet is what contributes the most to muscle recovery after a workout. Food and overall diet aids recovery, which in turn heals the damage the muscles have been inflicted during exercise. If you do not provide your body with enough nutrition, or the correct nutrients, this recovery may be impaired and take an unnecessarily long time. In the long run, it may go without saying that it also increases the risk of injury or being overtrained by the training.
I hope this gave you some concrete pointers on where you can start and what you should focus on to get the best possible start to your strength training.
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