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Eat right and raising heavy.
If there’s one constant thing we say across Nerd Fitness, it’s that if you want to lose weight, gain muscle, or just appear better than ever for an upcoming event, the two things you must do is feed right and raise heavy.
In this series on Strength Training, we’re going to cover ALL the things you need to know 😛 TAGEND
Strength training equipment Finding the Right Gym Where do I start ? How much weight should I be hoisting ? How to Squat Properly How to do an Overhead Press How to do the Deadlift safely How to a do a bodyweight row
We’ve touched on most of these things a few times before, went over your diet, and prove you some people it’s worked for, but we haven’t really gone into great detail.
Today that changes.
This is the first in a series of articles from NF Lead Female Coach Staci, covering all things strength training 😛 TAGEND
Oh, and she can probably lift more than you. Here she is easily deadlifting 400+ lbs at bodyweight of 150 lbs 😛 TAGEND
A post shared by Staci Ardison (@ staciardison ) on Oct 11, 2017 at 5:01 pm PDT
Staci has been part of Nerd Fitness for the past 7 years, and is now the make girl trainer in our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program!
Our coach gets to know you, builds a program based on your experience and objectives, checks to see your form on each move( via video), and prevent you accountable and on track!
You can learn more about our tutors and schedule a free see with us by clicking the image below 😛 TAGEND
With that out of the way, let’s jump into the amazing world of Strength Training !!!
Why strength training?
First of all, lets face it: Putting everything else aside, life is EASIER when you’re strong.
Carrying groceries? One journey. Children to carry? No difficulty. Vehicle stuck in the snow? Push it out with ease.
Plus, whether you’re 100 lbs overweight or simply need to lose the last 15, strength training is one of the most effective ways to burn fat and build muscle.
Lifting has been shown to halt and even overrule sarcopenia- the reduction of skeletal muscle that occurs as we get older- which helps us stay independent( and out of a nursing home) and live longer.
But in addition to compel life easier, strength training has a lot of great benefits right now. Here are just some 😛 TAGEND
Look Good Naked: Strength training helps you lose weight( and form fat) in a few different ways. First, it helps you retain the muscle you have while eating a calorie deficiency and losing weight.
Second, strength training has a much greater level of excess post-exercise oxygen uptake than aerobic practise. What does this signify? When “youre finished” a workout, your torso must be free to do a lot of work to replenish itself in order to deliver itself back to a normal state( the way it was before you worked out ). This takes a lot of energy, and some studies have shown that it can boost your metabolism for up to 38 hours after you finish your workout.
Not only that, but strength training can help increase your metabolism by accelerate progress your Resting Metabolic Rate( RMR ). This is because it takes your figure more calories to maintain muscle than it does to maintain fat. Approximations are that for every 1 lb of muscle you gain, your RMR goes up 30 -5 0 calories!
Makes You Healthier: If you’re looking for a workout in which you get the biggest bang for your buck, strength training is it. Strength training increases bone density, constructs a stronger nerve, reduces your resting blood pressure, improves blood flow, haltings muscle loss, assistances control blood sugar, improves cholesterol tiers, and improves your equilibrium and coordination (turning you from this, to this ).
You’ll Feel Better: Not only will you find yourself with more vigour and confidence, less stress and anxiety, and a better overall humor, but you’ll actually begin to think better (resistance teach has been proven to help increase cognitive function ). And while training too close to bedtime can be a bad idea, practising later today has been proven to help prevent sleep apnea and insomnia. I even improved my posture- when I started hoisting, I was 5’4”. Now I’m 5’5. 5”.
Prevents illness and degenerative conditions: Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women; Strength training helps remedy issues relating to cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and stagnation- all factors for heart disease. Cardiologists are even is beginning to recommend strength training for people who have suffered a nerve attack as little as three weeks after the attack. Who knows, maybe one day your cardiologist will tell you to do some “cardio” and he’ll be referring to strength training!
Strength training has also been proven to help manage and improve the quality of life for people with Arthritis, Osteoporosis, Parkinson’s Disease, Down Syndrome, Lymphedema, fibromyalgia, who have recently had a stroke, have had a spinal cord injury, cancer survivors and clinical depression.
In addition to ALL of the above, strength training is fun! Whether you are looking for the most effective 20 -3 0 minute workout( to stay fit and look great naked ), or are looking for a competitive sport that you can really get into, strength training can be used to meet your goals. It’s easy and merriment to see progress as you strength instruct, almost like leveling up. And if you’re looking to improve in other areas (a sport, traditional cardio, or an activity like rock climbing ), strength training is an easy alternative!
Ok, ok. Enough already. Is there anyone who SHOULDN’T strength civilize?
Honestly, I did a lot of research on this one, because I craved to find a single group of people who should not strength develop. I even detected surveys on how strength training can be beneficial for paraplegics.
Not to mention it can be safe for children, adolescents, and pregnant women. Obviously, you should take a break from strength develop if you’re injured, and always check with medical doctors before you start any sort of strength training program, but it’s natural for us, as humen, to move around and carry things.
Primary dissents to strength training
But I’m so old ! This can’t be safe!
We hear this from 30 year olds and 60 year olds alike…and, like “I don’t have time, ” it is a big fat lie! Even for the frail elderly, surveys have shown that drastic results are possible in merely 10 weeks of weightlifting (for both men and women in their 70 s through their 90 s ). In fact, weight training has also been shown to delay Alzheimer’s and stave off dementia . So, if you think you might be “too old,” you’re probably the exact type of person that SHOULD be strength training!
But my focus is on( running)( basketball)( quidditch) and I need to stay slim!
Studies have shown that strength training actually increases the strength of your muscles.
In fact, opposition practices is not merely help to tune up an out of shape nervous system and increase the activation of motor units within your muscles, but likewise helps increase their overall endurance.
If you’re worried about overall sizing, remember: there are many types of strength training, and size and strength don’t always move hand in hand. We’ll get into detailed information about this in a minute.
I don’t had wished to get bulky
Ladies! The images of “bulky” ladies that “you il be” invoking up are from bodybuilding publications. This is one of the biggest myth surrounding strength training. When I started strength training, I didn’t get bulky, I got lean, And I’m no outlier, I’m just one example of the rule: Women who strength train get strong and lean , not bulky.
Like Veronica, who got damn strong and certainly recline.
Or Bronwyn, who turned into a powerlifting super mom.
That “bulky” look in ladies does not happen by mistake or overnight- we simply do not have the hormones necessary to get there on our own. To achieve this look, wives have to eat incredible amounts of food and consume extraordinary amounts of drugs. When we strength train normally, without these supplements, we terminate up looking like athletes.
We’ll be talking more about strength training for women in a later article, but for now, only remember that everything in this article applies to both men and women.
I’m fat. I need to lose weight first.
Great! Start with strength training When you’re overweight, my guess is that you want to be preserving the muscle you have while losing the majority of members of your weight through fat. With strength training, your overall weight loss may seem slower, but you will lose inches faster. Strength training increases your metabolism; as long as you’re still feeing in a deficit, you’ll lose weight.
It’s boring
We’ll be talking more about this later, but for now, merely give it a shot! In strength training you can see your progress so clearly that as you can do more and more, you’ll also be rewarded by seeing your strength progress from degree 1 to degree 50! If you aren’t a fan of the downtime, put one over a journal on tape or throw on your favorite playlist while circuit training to ensure you’re always moving( instead of sitting and waiting in between laids ).
Is that enough for us to convince you? Awesome.
If you read the above and said to yourself “Hell yeah, I’m ready to get started. Let’s goooo! ” You’re in the privilege spot!
I want to send you our free steer, Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know, so that “youve had” specific plans to follow and know how to do every practise confidently! Grab it free when you Join the Rebellion with your email in the box below. I’m excited for you to get started.
Download our comprehensive steer STRENGTH TRAINING 101!
Everything you need to know about getting strong. Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight develop. How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
I identify as a:
Woman Man Muscles and strength training
Before we start actually hoisting anything, the first thing we need to do is have a basic understanding of how our muscles work.
Our muscles are made up of many smaller muscle cells, more commonly known as muscle fibers. They’re long and cylindrical, and about the size of a single strand of hair. Muscle fibers are comprised of myofibrils surrounded by sarcoplasm.( This is the super short version- if you’re looking for detailed information, check out this page .)
We’ve got about 642 skeletal muscles, and they all project together to help our forms move. For instance, when you bend your arm, your bicep contracts and your tricep does the opposite (elongates) in order to let your elbow bending. Every muscle in your torso tasks alongside the other.
We also have different types of fibers within our muscles, which be determined what type of training we respond best to.
The most common fiber types are 😛 TAGEND
Slow twitch( or Type I fibers) are used only for aerobic practises where we need to convert oxygen into fuel over long periods of time. They are very resistant to fatigue, but do not move very quickly. These help for things such as extending long distances. Fast twitch( or Type II fibers) fire very rapidly, but also fatigue rapidly, so they don’t last long. It gets a bit more complicated, because there are actually two types of fast twitch fibers. Type IIA fibers have some endurance qualities( used only for things such as longer sprints). While Type IIX fibers are our “super fast” fibers, used only when a super short explode is needed( like a 100 m sprint or a really heavy lift ).
Every person has a different percentage of fast twitching and slow twitch fibers, which is why some people tend to be naturally better at extending intervals than sprinting, or better at longer placeds than short ones.
What is hypertrophy?
Most people believe that we can increase the amount of muscle fibers “were having” by weight teach. In reality, we’re only born with a specific amount of muscle- by strength training, we don’t actually increase the number of muscle fibers, but we increase the dimensions of the them, increasing overall mass. This is called hypertrophy.
Now, there are a few types of hypertrophy. When person normally just says “hypertrophy” they are most likely referring to sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.
Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy focuses on increasing the amount of sarcoplasm, the non-contractile fluid are available in your muscle. Up to 30% of your muscle’s size is attributed to the sarcoplasm, so focusing on this type of hypertrophy helps construct overall sizing.
Myofibril hypertrophy concentrating on enhance their myofibril, the contractile part of the muscle.
In this type of hypertrophy, you are strengthening the actual muscle fiber, so it helps you build super dense, strong muscles. Transient hypertrophy is the temporary an increased number of muscle size that happens during and immediately after weight teach due to fluid accumulation in the intracellular space, that “youre supposed to” know as “the pump”.
So in summary, if you want to focus mainly on structure super strong dense muscle, you want myofibril hypertrophy. If you merely care about your muscles get bigger, focus on sarcoplasmic.
Transient hypertrophy is temporary and will be presented alongside with both types.
When you strength civilize you’re basically doing two things to your muscles 😛 TAGEND
Breaking down the muscle tissue so that your form will heal and rebuild the muscle back stronger. You understand, our figure hates being told it can’t do something. When you break down your muscle fiber it comes back stronger; when you try to do that thing again, it will be successful. As you start to increase the repeating( rep) assortment, you increase the glycogen storage in the muscle. This is where you get your increased sizing from.
What does this mean for me?
It means that there’s a lot more to do with strength training than just hoisting things. You need to be training differently, depending on your specific goals.
Now I don’t want you to go into information overload and not end up in the gym. So, we’re going to break it down for you here:
Rep( Repetition)- One motion through a range of motion and back again. One full squat, plunging below parallel and stand back up again is “one rep.”
X Rep Max- The heaviest loading you’re able to successfully complete for X reps. So for example, a 1 Rep Max (or 1RM for short) is something so heavy that you can only complete one rep of that weight. A 10 RM you can only complete 10 reps of- you are able to miscarry on the 11 th.
Looking at the following chart, if you want strength (myofibrillar hypertrophy ), you’re going to want to keep the reps low and the load heavy.
If you’re looking for size, which you get chiefly from sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, you’re going to want to keep the weight lighter and the reps higher.
Now, one thing to understand is that each of these elements are NOT exclusive- when you train in a higher rep range you’re not JUST getting size, you’re likewise get strength.
This is why I never is understood young girls who don’t had wished to “get bulky” are told by trainers to do 3 determineds of 10-12( or 5 placed of 1,000 reps of bicep curls with a 1 lb pink dumbbell ). While it’s difficult for women to gain any sort of size lifting in ANY rep range, if we were trying to gain muscle size, that’s EXACTLY what we would want to do( as it “wouldve been” inducing sarcoplasmic hypertrophy).
Personally, I wouldn’t worry TOO much about all of the stuff above, specially if it starts to overwhelm you!
After all, we want you to be CONFIDENT and not overwhelmed, as the sooner you start strength training, the sooner you learn the ropes and start to make progress! We cover all of this in our free guidebook, Strength 101: Everything You Need to Know, along with free workout strategies- grab all the goodies fo’ free when you join our worldwide Rebellion with your email in the carton below!
Read more: nerdfitness.com
