One of the best ways to improve your health is to strengthen your muscles. Using one or more muscles to perform a specific task, such as lifting weight, is included in strength training. In recent years, strength training has become an integral part of most exercise programs because of its many benefits. Conceivably, when considering strength training, you may wonder how it will benefit you.
In strength training, a specific muscle or muscle group is exercised against external resistance, such as free weights, weight machines, or your body weight. Strength training is also known as weight training or resistance training. It is a form of exercise that improves muscular strength and fitness.
Types Of Strength Training
It has been affirmed by several studies that different forms of strength training exercises enhance balance, strengthen bones and muscles, and help you lose or maintain weight or improve athletes overall performance. Below is a listing of different kinds of strength training, their benefits, and a summary of the training needed to achieve them.
1. Strength Endurance
Strength endurance helps in maintaining a constant level of muscle force over an extended period. It ensures that oxygen and nutrients are supplied to the working muscles while metabolic waste is removed.
Examples:
Among the examples are endurance events like a 10K, marathon, or triathlon, yard work, and other vigorous household chores, and high-volume training for bodybuilding.
Benefits:
- Stabilize your posture for a prolonged period.
- Enhance working muscle’s aerobic capacity.
- Increase functional abilities and ADLs.
Training Strategy:
Exercise selection: These exercises include compound and single-joint movements utilizing a variety of equipment; body-weight moves
Intensity: Low-to-moderate, approximately 40-80% of the 1RM
Reps: 10+
Tempo: Consistent: slow to moderate
Sets: 2 to 5+
Rest interval: 30 to 60 seconds
2. Agile Strength
Agile training aids in decelerating, controlling, and generating muscle force in multiple planes. Many tasks require the ability to move a mass through gravity in multiple planes of motion, and traditional strength training emphasizes shortening muscles to achieve this.
Examples:
In team sports such as football, soccer, basketball, hockey, volleyball, and rugby agile strength is used where you must quickly respond to the movements of the other players and of the ball.
Benefits:
- Produce the force needed to move objects.
- Reduce the risk of sprains and muscle pulls by increasing muscle and connective tissue resilience.
- Boost performance in specific sports or activities of daily living (ADLs).
Training Strategy:
Exercise selection: Free weights (dumbbells, medicine balls, sandbags, etc.) or cable machines are used to perform multiplanar movements.
Intensity: Low-to-moderate, approximately 50 to 75% of the estimated 1 repetition maximum (1RM) for a particular exercise.
Reps: 12 to15+
Tempo: Variable speeds: slow to fast
Sets: 2 to 5+
Rest interval: 30 to 90 seconds
3. Maximum Strength
Maximum strength is described as a muscle’s ability to recruit and engage all of its motor units to produce maximal tension against an external resistance. Maximum strength is the highest level of muscle force that can be generated. Other than this it requires high levels of neuromuscular efficiency to intensify both intra- and intermuscular coordination.
Examples:
A few examples are powerlifting, squatting, deadlifting, bench pressing, and strongman competitions.
Benefits:
- Strengthen the muscles with type II (fast-twitch) fibers that are capable of producing high levels of force.
- Hormones that promote muscle growth are increased.
- Improve bone density and stability.
- Enhance sports and ADL performance.
Training Strategy
Exercise Selection: Free weights and selectorized machines for compound and single joint movements.
Intensity: 90 to 100% 1RM
Reps: 1 to 4
Tempo: The weight moves slowly even though the lifter attempts to use maximum speed.
Sets: 3 to 4+
Rest interval: 2 to 4 minutes.
4. Speed Strength
In speed strength, the maximal force capable of being produced during a high-speed movement; is trained with either bodyweight or a minimal amount of resistance, allowing the movement to be executed as fast as possible.
Examples:
Throwing a baseball, swinging a golf club, and running a sprint.
Benefits:
- Enhance athletic performance.
- Minimize reaction times.
- Reduce the time of the stretch-shorten cycle.
Training Strategy:
Exercise selection: Compound movements using a variety of free weights; unloaded body-weight movements
Intensity: 30 to 50% 1RM
Reps: 1 to 6
Tempo: Fast, volatile
Sets: 2 to 6+
Rest interval: 30 seconds to 2 minutes
5. Explosive Strength
Explosive strength maximizes muscle lengthening followed by rapid acceleration through the shortening phase, to produce the greatest amount of force in the shortest amount of time. In this type of training range of motion (ROM) is measured by the speed of movement.
Moreover, during the stretch-shortened cycle, explosive strength is measured by the contractile element’s ability to rapidly generate tension, while power is measured by elastic tissue’s ability to minimize the size change between lengthening and shortening.
Examples:
An example would be throwing a shot-put, lifting Olympic weights such as the clean-and-jerk and snatch; or quickly evading danger.
Benefits:
- Enhance intramuscular coordination and improve recruitment of motor units.
- Lessen reaction time.
- Boost connective tissue and muscle resiliency.
- Trigger type II muscle fibers.
Training Strategy
Exercise selection: Compound and single-joint movements using a variety of free weights.
Intensity: 40 to 75% 1RM
Reps: 1 to 6
Tempo: Fast as conceivable
Sets: 2 to 5+
Rest interval: 30 to 90 seconds
6. Starting Strength
In starting strength, force is generated at the beginning of a movement without momentum or an initial stretch to load mechanical energy. During an isometric contraction, tension is created, allowing the fascia and connective tissue around the muscle to lengthen and store mechanical energy.
Examples:
A track star, a football lineman in his stance before snapping the ball, or getting up from a seated position are some examples
Benefits
- Strengthen muscles and connective tissue to produce more force.
- Lessen the start time for sports requiring athletes to move from a stationary position to a running position.
- Enhance the ability to transition from seated to standing.
Training Strategy
Selection of exercises: Compound movements and single-joint movements using a variety of resistance types to focus on force production in the initial range of motion.
Intensity: 50-90% 1RM
Reps: 1 to 6
Tempo: Fast, volatile
Sets: 2 to 6+
Rest interval: 45 seconds to 3 minutes
The principle of specificity states that strength develops in response to how much resistance is applied and what types of movements are used in an exercise program. Slowly moving a heavy mass produces one kind of strength, whereas rapidly accelerating a small object will produce another kind of strength. Yet another type of strength can be developed by sustaining a constant rate of motion for a high number of repetitions.
By understanding different types of strength training and how to achieve them with exercises, you may benefit from Vitruve-the ultimate fitness tracking solution for a majority of your workouts. This small-sized encoder by using its proprietary app, allows you to track your progress in real-time. You can learn more about velocity-based training and how encoders can help you improve your performance as an athlete in our guide.
Conclusion
The purpose of strength training is to build muscle mass, endurance, and strength through exercises that involve your body weight or equipment. Strength training consists of a variety of exercises, such as bodyweight exercises, lifting weights, or circuit training. Health benefits associated with strength training include a reduced risk of heart disease and diabetes, stronger bones, improved brain health and mood, and improved self-esteem.
There’s more to strength training than lifting weights at the gym. Strength training can be done with anything from your body weight to resistance bands and free weights. Therefore, anyone can benefit from strength training, regardless of their experience level.
