If you shy away from strength training, perhaps you think you’ll end up looking too muscular, well consider the benefits from regular resistance training.
To name just a few:
- You will lose more body fat as it will increase your metabolic rate so you burn more energy in the hours afterward.
- It stimulates the release of feel-good chemicals – endorphins and serotonin.
- You will be physically stronger and daily household tasks will be easier to lift, push, and pull.
- Boosts bone mineral density protecting against osteoporosis.
- You will reduce your risk of injury, back pain and arthritis, as strength training not only builds stronger muscles, but also builds stronger connective tissues and increases joint stability.
Examples of this include:
Weight Lifting e.g. Barbells, Dumbells, Kettlebells, Medicine or Wall Balls
Lifting weights during strength training sessions is an excellent way to burn fat through exercise. Lifting heavy weights will help you to burn calories because the intensity of your lifts will be increased. Also lifting weights even those that aren’t as heavy like medicine ball or wall ball, will help you to burn more calories after your workout because it increases your lean muscle tissue and in turn this tissue elevates your metabolism. Never lift beyond your means, as lifting weights that are too heavy will mean you will sacrifice your form and this is a big no no!
Kettle bells
The aerobic nature of kettle bell exercises helps you to burn fat because these exercises increase your heart rate. Kettle bells also help you to burn fat because they build muscle and the more muscle mass a person has the more calories they burn.
Medicine Balls
Medicine Balls are great functional exercise tool that can be used for strength and conditioning used to improve explosive power, speed and amp up power moves, plyometric and cardio. They are also a simple way that we can add more weight and stabilisation to regular body weight moves to strengthen your core muscles.
Wall Balls
Wall ball exercises are also a functional exercise (movement performed in multiple planes using multiple joints), which means that they will help you in everyday movements, and not just at training. Think about how often you need to squat in life, or lift something over your head, and the practical application of the wall ball becomes immediately apparent. And together, the combination of these two exercises can give you an enormous amount of strength—if your arms aren’t strong enough to lift something above you on their own, you can add your leg strength to give you even more of a boost. If you’re trying to get in shape for a sport, improve your V02 max, increase your endurance or just stop being out of breath after walking up the stairs, wall balls are great exercise for this. Since they are a dynamic movement —meaning you should be moving during the entire exercise—they’re not only a strength exercise, but also require a tremendous amount of work from your heart and lungs. Bonus is that they also increase overall power and explosiveness!