Exercise 101 - Strength Training

From our article Exercise 101, you know why exercise is an essential part of human health and you are familiar with the physical activity recommendations for health:

• 150-300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise per week or at 75-150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise per week (Spread out during the week!).

• Strength training at least 2-3 times per week.

• 10,000 steps per day

Over the Exercise 101 chronicles, we are going to unpack this for you.

What is Strength Training

Strength training refers to exercise that strengthens the muscle by resisting load, hence why you may also see it referred to as “Resistance Training”. On the streets (the gym streets), we call it “lifting” (#doyouevenlift).

Though, to perform strength training, you don’t necessarily have to lift anything, nor do you have to go to the gym. Exercises utilising body weight as resistance can be just as effective.

Examples of strengthening activities outside of the gym or body-weight exercises include climbing, heavy gardening or moving-house (although this has a component of cardio too, especially if you have stairs!).

Strength training results in increased strength and increased overall muscle size. Increases in sizes are generally limited, unless you adopt specific training protocols for this – so it’s no excuse to avoid the exercise!

🤓Interesting Facts

Strength training predominately uses what we call “fast twitch” muscle fibres.

The quick and powerful movements are generated by Type IIb. They don’t require oxygen to generate the energy needed, but they fatigue quicker.

Chicken meat is white, because it includes a higher proportion of fast twitch, Type IIb muscle fibres, which require less oxygen. They have less of the red myoglobin proteins, which store and provide oxygen to the muscle cells.

Strength exercise involving repetitive reps (generally more than 3), use the muscle fibres known as Type IIa. They utilise more oxygen, although not as much as the “slow twitch” fibres used in endurance and aerobic exercises.

Benefits of Strength Training

Strength training has benefits to us outside of aesthetic appeal.

Strength training is an essential aspect of Type 2 Diabetes management and prevention. Type 2 Diabetes results in high levels of glucose (blood sugar). Put simply, strength training preferences the glucose as immediate energy. At rest, glycogen (stored sugar) is in the liver and in muscle, therefore the more muscle you have, the more storage capacity.

Strength training can also assist in weight management by increasing your resting metabolic rate (as muscles are hungry tissues!). It has also been associated with mood improvement and bone strength (important if you would prefer to avoid breaking bones when you’re older).

How much Strength Training?

For health achievement and maintenance, the recommendation for strength training is 2-3 times per week. Each session should include 8-10 exercises, with 2-3 sets of 8-12 repetitions.

IMPORTANT: 2 sets of 8 repetitions means that there must be a significant rest between sets, usually 1 minute is sufficient. If there is no rest, you are performing 1 set of 16 repetitions. I’m sorry but dem de rules.

This is not inherently bad, and is perfectly acceptable if your goal is to increase muscular endurance, but you will not be achieving the ideal strength improvements. If you have specific goals other than health, you can follow the below protocols.

Fun Facts

Improvements in strength training are not age-ist.

Sure the improvements won’t be as large, but strength training in older adults can actually reverse “age-related” muscle loss! I guess that kind of means it slows down ageing 😉

Bigger does not (always) equal stronger!

Muscular strength depends on a few factors, limb length, technique and muscle fibre recruitment also play a part

MYTH BUSTER!

Muscle does not turn in to fat if you stop training!

Our metabolic pathways don’t work that way! Muscles may atrophy (decrease in size), and you may accumulate fat if you’re less active and eating poorly, but that doesn’t mean the fat was muscle in it’s past life!

So what about Cardio?
Good Question! We’ve covered that here!

I hope that’s cleared up any queries! I’m going to go to some push-ups. Until next time Amigos!
Biara Webster
Content Manager and Exercise Physiologist