For the overall fitness of your body, well-structured strength training is highly required for fitness. Without strength, it will be a daunting task to carry out day-to-day lifestyle activities. Strength is highly needed as it helps to evade any possible injuries at the time of a workout or performing any strenuous exercises. When it comes to strength training for beginners, it’s important to know that you don’t need to do anything fancy to get strong. All it takes are some fundamental moves, consistency, and patience. When you first start strengthening exercises, it makes you hard to push, which might have you scrambling to figure out how to build muscle quickly so your workouts don’t feel like punishment.
The key to creating an effective and enjoyable strength-training routine is starting with a solid foundation of exercises that work each part of your body. If you focus mostly on this handful of staple moves, you will notice that they will gradually start to feel easier with time. This is a sign of getting stronger. And once that happens, you can start progressing the moves by using heavier or different weights, trying advanced variations, or experimenting with completely new exercises altogether.
Benefits of Strength Training Workouts
- Prevents Abdominal Fat – Strength training is more effective at preventing increases in abdominal fat than cardiovascular exercise. When people incorporate strength training into their exercise regime, they not only burn calories but increase lean muscle mass, which stimulates the metabolism. Muscle mass is a major factor in determining the basal metabolic rate, or the number of calories the body burns per day to sustain physiologic functions.
- Better Cardiovascular Health – Abdominal fat, also known as visceral fat is located in and around the vital organs and is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, known as CVD. Visceral fat is linked to CVD because it’s associated with the release of certain proteins and hormones that cause inflammation. This inflammation has been shown to damage blood vessels, increase blood pressure and lead to other cardiac problems. So, preventing or reducing any excess abdominal fat through strength training can certainly improve heart health.
- Controls Blood Sugar Levels – Anyone with Type 2 diabetes should incorporate resistance training into their routine. That’s because as a 2013 review published in the journal BioMed Research International showed, in addition to building muscle, strength training also improves the muscle’s ability to take in and use glucose, or blood sugar.
- Prevents Injuries – Having a good muscle base is important for all movement, balance, coordination and injury prevention. If a muscle is too weak, it puts more stress on its connecting tendon and over time can result in tendinitis. Plus, strength training also increases the number and diameter of collagen fibrils in tendons to increase their strength and help in injury prevention.
- Improves Flexibility – Strength training improves flexibility and mobility. By taking your joints through their full range of motion during strength exercises, you can increase that range of motion over time. Many studies have shown that strength training improves flexibility in both men and women. However, incorporating strength exercises also improves hamstring flexibility twice as well as static stretching. Eccentric exercises are any that emphasize muscle lengthening, rather than shortening.
Top 10 Strengthening Exercises for Beginners
1.) Pull-ups – Pull-ups are an upper-body exercise that recruits multiple large muscle groups, primarily the muscles in the back and biceps, and uses the body’s own weight as resistance. To do a pull-up, grasp a bar overhead and pull your body up to the bar using the strength in your upper body. With practice and by building strength, you will make progress. And when you do, the sense of accomplishment you get by doing something difficult will give you a big confidence boost.
2.) Push-ups – Like pull-ups, push-ups are also primarily an upper-body exercise that recruits multiple large muscle groups and use the body’s weight as resistance. Push-ups target the chest, shoulders and triceps muscles, and because your body is in a high plank posture, you also engage your core and legs for stability. There are two basic modifications to make push-ups more accessible. The most common modification is to simply drop your knees to the floor and do push-ups from your hands and knees. This is an easy variation that takes some of your body weight out of the equation.
3.) Glute Bridges – Glute bridges are the largest muscle group in the body. It’s important to ensure they are strong and functioning properly to prevent injury and reduce back pain. Often the glutes get weak and lose function due to prolonged sitting. So before doing any other lower-body exercises, it’s a good idea to perform a few glute bridges to make sure the glutes are firing properly.
4.) Squats – Squats are a favourite exercise to boost confidence since they are a great way to build strength in the lower body. Squats build strength, primarily in the lower body, by working the glutes and the quadriceps muscles. They also recruit the core to stabilize the body throughout the exercise. Squats can be done using only your body weight or can be made advanced by adding dumbbells, kettlebells, a barbell or bands to increase the resistance as you continue to build strength.
5.) Deadlifts – Deadlifts are one of the most important exercises that you can do to learn how to lift things without hurting your back. It also feels great to be able to lift something heavy. Deadlifts work the muscles in the glutes, hamstrings and core. To reduce the risk of injury with deadlifts, as with all resistance exercises, you should ensure to perform it with proper form. Start by practising the movement with no weight. Then add weight slowly as you build strength.
6.) Walking Lunges – Walking lunges are one of the best exercises to continue to target the glues and tone the legs. They recruit multiple muscle groups, and since they also work your balance, walking lunges are a great way to build confidence by improving overall strength and stability. Use your body weight, add dumbbells, kettlebells or a barbell to continue to progress as you build strength.
7.) Biceps Curls – Biceps curls are an upper-body exercise that targets the muscles on the front side of the upper arms. They build the functional strength that you will need to carry heavy things, and they make your arms look great. If you don’t have dumbbells or a barbell, you can do this exercise with something as simple as a bottle of water.
8.) Overhead Triceps Extensions – Building muscle in your triceps can help reduce the sagging in the arms that often comes with age. Improving muscle tone in that area of the body is a great way to boost body confidence. However, besides all, building the triceps provides functional strength to help in any situation where you need to push an object away from your body, and it will also help to perfect your push-up.
9.) Boat Pose Exercise – Boat pose is one of the best core-strengthening exercises since it works both the abdominal and the back muscles. It requires no equipment, and you can start by holding the pose as long as you can, and then add time as you get stronger. Getting the right posture from the start is important. Begin in a seated posture with your feet in front of you, and set your upper body by rolling your shoulders up, back and down to keep your chest up and neck neutral. Pull your belly button in toward your spine to activate your core and begin to tilt your body toward the back of your hips and allow your feet to float up to come into your boat. By breathing deeply and using your muscles to hold this posture, you will strengthen your core and your confidence.
10.) Planks – Just like a boat pose, a plank is a static posture that engages almost every muscle in the body. It is a core exercise but also recruits muscles in the upper body and the lower body. If you can perfect your plank posture, you can perfect your overall standing and seated posture, which research shows is essential to building confidence in ourselves and projecting confidence to others. Planks require no equipment and can be done anywhere. There are several ways to modify and progress a standard plank. Start by holding a standard plank as long as you are able, using good form, and then work to progress from there.
Disclaimer:
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a health advice. We would ask you to consult a qualified professional or medical expert to gain additional knowledge before you choose to consume any product or perform any exercise.
