Last time, I talked about the importance of cardiovascular training and how various exercises work. Today, I’ll be going over resistance training, or weightlifting.
Lifting heavy weights causes microscopic tears in your muscles; your muscles will then repair these tears. When the muscle is repaired, it gets slightly bigger. Over time, you grow more and more muscle. This regrowth is called anabolism (and indeed, that’s why anabolic steroids are named as such).
So, why should you lift weights? For starters, weight lifting:
- increases bone density
- reduces the chances of clinical depression
- improves heart strength, blood pressure, and cardiovascular health much more than any antihypertensive drug
- improves metabolism and reduce fat
Increased skeletal muscle mass increases your body’s peripheral insulin sensitivity, which is responsible for storage of glucose in the liver. In other words, the more muscle you have, the better your body responds to increases in glucose. As a result, your cells can take up more glucose, so less glucose becomes converted into body fat.
Of course, if you eat too much, no amount of insulin sensitivity will prevent you from gaining fat. So, the point still stands: weightlifting is great, but diet is STILL the most important component in fitness.
So now, onto the best part: which exercises to do? There’s literally a ton of exercises that can be done, but here are the most common ones, which are useful because they are compound exercises– meaning they simultaneously work multiple muscle groups. They are the squat, deadlift, and bench press. (For a video on each of the exercises, please click on the links provided within each of the paragraphs).
The Squat
The key is to descend completely, while keeping the barbell on the back. Keeping the back straight is important because there is a much higher chance for injury if your back is not kept straight. If the weight seems to be too much, simply squatting all the way down and letting the safety bars catch the bar is much safer and efficient than trying to lift something too heavy and jeopardizing your form in the process.
Squats work the entire lower body, including quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, and glutes. Squats also work out core muscles (obliques and abs) to some extent because of the need to stabilize the bar on the trapezius to prevent injury.
Squats are especially important because the muscles in the legs are among the largest in the body. As a result, developing strong leg muscles is important to developing insulin sensitivity.
The Deadlift
This exercise is mostly consistent of a “jerking” motion, while keeping the arms straight and back straight, with legs around shoulder-width apart.
Deadlifts are a full-body exercise because it requires many muscles to stabilize the motion, including the hamstrings, quadriceps. The most important part about the deadlift is to keep the back straight; with heavy enough weights, having a bent back will most likely cause injury. Don’t let this dissuade you from doing the exercise though; if the weight seems too much for you, just dropping the weight will be safe.
Woman lifting weights.
Image source: NKS_Imagery
Bench Press
The bench press is actually very difficult to do improperly; the key is simply to make sure not to use too much weight. This is one of the exercises in which having a spotter (someone to catch the bar in case you use too much weight) is essential, because unlike the other two exercises, if the weight is too much for you and you are unable to catch it, it is very likely that you will injure yourself.
The bench press trains your chest, but also your triceps and shoulders. In addition, it also works out the core (for stabilization and breathing purposes).
How do I start?
For beginners, it is best to start out with five sets of five repetitions; that is, you begin with five repetitions of the exercise, then rest. That is considered one set. Repeat this to reach a total of five sets or 25 repetitions. If you can easily do another five repetitions, then it is likely that the weight is too light for you, and that you may need to add more weight. Reversibly, if you cannot do five repetitions, then it’s most likely that the weight is too much and that you need to reduce the weight. This process will require a lot of experimentation, and may take a significant amount of time to find the perfect amount of weight to use.
Something important to keep in mind for all of these exercises is to NOT use too much weight. Sure, it’s nice to be able to say that you can bench 300 lbs, but if you injure yourself, you may not be benching anything for a while — or even be able to move for a while.
In conclusion, the key is to make an exercise program that works for you, depending on whether or not you want to build more muscle, lose more fat, or any combination between the two. The most important aspect is to watch what you eat, and from there, adding in more cardio or resistance training depending on what your goals are.
I hope you have found this three-part series to be informative! While this is certainly not meant to be for everyone, hopefully you can use this as the basis to form your own fitness plan, and to eventually meet your fitness goals!
