Weight Training for Health, Fitness and Weight Loss

Weight training exercises describe exercise where someone lifts a mass or load repeatedly under controlled conditions with the purpose of exercise specific muscle groups to improve strength. Weight training not only improves strength and muscular endurance, but it also improves skeletal stability and increases bone density.

Beginners Weight Training is no different from advanced weight training in principal, it is just that beginners should start with a basic workout to build core strength, then progress on to more advanced weight training techniques and isolation exercises once the core strength of the body is improved, and the weight lifter is comfortable with all the exercises. Correct form during weight training is essential to avoid injury and to experience maximum gains from training.

Weight training is also known as resistance training, or strength training. Weight training can serve several functions, such as to create a competitive advantage for athletes by training the muscles harder than possible by standard athletic drills. It also can aid in recovery after injury by speeding muscular growth, ensuring correct skeletal alignment and posture. It is also done simply to improve muscle tone and increase size for aesthetic purposes. Many people join the gym and weight train to get a fit body, and to lose weight and body-fat. Weight training is possibly the most effective way to burn fat. When performed correctly, weight training can provide significant functional benefits and improvement in overall health and well-being. Weight training is also an excellent method in helping to lose belly fat as muscles requires a lot more energy to sustain themselves than fat does, so it can help to reduce fat by having more muscle.

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Weight training is an anaerobic activity, as generally weights are lifted in a slow and controlled manner, ensuring that muscles are worked in isolation, and maximum effort can be applied to the lifting of the weights. Often beginners weight training routines are more aerobic than advanced routines, as lighter weights are used for more repetitions to help train correct form. Poor form is far less likely to lead to injury when lifting light weights.

Weight training routines are generally broken down into repetitions (often shortened to reps) and sets. A set describes one exercise done repeatedly for a specific number of repetitions (or until muscular failure) and repetitions are simply the number of times the weight is lifted through its full movement.

Weight trainers usually aim to progressively lift increasing amounts of weight, both during one training session, and as a long term goal. For many athletes, martial artists and sports persons, weight training provides an objective approach to training that is not always possible in other types of exercise, in that it is very easy to compare current maximum weight lifted against past experience, and it is very easy to set goals to lift a specific weight after X months training.

Weight training differs from bodybuilding, weightlifting, and powerlifting, which are sports rather than forms of exercise. Weight training, however, is often part of their training regimen.

For a practical introduction to weight training routines, both beginners weight training and more advanced weight training, these simple weight training routines will hopefully help you get started with weight training. Refer to Exercises for specific muscle groups to learn about the different weight training techniques and exercises.

Some History

Hippocrates explained the principle behind weight training when he wrote “that which is used develops, and that which is not used wastes away.” Progressive resistance training dates back at least to Ancient Greece, when legend has it that wrestler Milo of Croton trained by carrying a newborn calf on his back every day until it was fully grown. Another Greek, the physician Galen, described strength training exercises using the halteres (an early form of dumbbell) in the 2nd century.

The dumbbell was joined by the barbell in the latter half of the 19th century. Early barbells had hollow globes that could be filled with sand or lead shot, but by the end of the century these were replaced by the plate-loading barbell commonly used today.

Strength training using isometric exercises was popularised by Charles Atlas from the 1930s onwards. The 1960s saw the gradual introduction of exercise machines into the still-rare strength training gyms of the time. Weight training became increasingly popular in the 1980s, following the release of the bodybuilding movie Pumping Iron and the subsequent popularity of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Since the late 1990’s increasing numbers of women have taken up weight training, influenced by programs like Body for Life.

Health Benefits for Women

Weight training, whether by using free weights or resistance machines, is essential for maintaining strong and healthy bones as well as muscles. Women do not bulk up like men, at least so long as they do not take testosterone supplements. Female bodybuilders really play a different game altogether.

Long term health can be improved by weight training, such as by reducing the risks of osteoporosis – which affects women more so than men.

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