|
Weight training
Weight training can help you tone up your muscles, improve your appearance and fight age-related muscle decay. Weight training is a kind of strength training that uses weights for resistance due to gravitational force. These procedures challenge your muscles by forcing them to familiarize yourself to the strain of the weights (in the form of weighted bars, dumbbells or weight stacks). Weight training differs from bodybuilding, weightlifting, power lifting which are types of sports rather than forms of exercise. Weight training, however, is often part of the athlete's regular training regimen. Only exercising with weights is not the key to successful workout. There are three principal factors that contribute to building muscle bulk – proper and balanced diet, training and adequate rest. All are equally important to success.
There are two primary weight-training philosophies-
HIT- it stands for High Intensity Training. HIT requires the person to workout 1-3 times a week with full body single-set practice. These are to be shorter in duration but severe workouts. Each and every workout is expected to create an increase in power so that when performing your next workout you should either inclined to carry out more reps with the same weight or the same number of reps with an increased weight.
Periodization- In a periodization program, you can do light training exercises for three weeks, followed by medium training for a couple of weeks and then do heavy weight-training for the final phase. Emphasis is not relied on achieving gains in every workout. It is based on the cumulative gains after all stages. The basic thought is to alter intensity and volume levels to check overtraining.
If you are a beginner, you may notice that you are capable to lift only a few pounds. However, do not get disappointed. Once your muscles, tendons and ligaments adjust to weight training exercises, you will be astonished at how quickly you progress. To give your muscles time to recover from fatigue, take rest one full day in between working on each specific muscle group. It is customary to work the major muscle groups at a single session two to three times a week. If you would rather lift weights every day, chalk out daily session plans for specific muscle groups. For example, on Monday work your legs, on Tuesday work your arms and shoulders and so on.
The amount of weight to be lifted should be calculated on a percentage of the maximum amount of weight that can be lifted one time without facing any kind of problem, generally referred to as one repetition maximum (1RM). The maximum number of repetitions that can be performed before exhaustion prohibits the completion of an extra repetition is a function of the weight used, referred to as repetition maximum (RM), and reflects the intensity of the exercise.
Here is a chart kindly reproduced from American College of Sports Medicine journal published in 2002-
Both concentric and eccentric muscle actions
Both single and multiple joint exercises
Exercise sequence
Large before small muscle group exercises
Multiple-joint exercises before single-joint exercises
Higher intensity before lower intensity exercises
When training at a specific RM load
2-10% increase in load
one to two repetitions over the desired number
Training frequency
2-3 days per week for novice and intermediate training
4-5 days per week for advanced training.
Novice training
8-12 repetition maximum (RM)
Intermediate to advanced training
1-12 RM in periodized fashion
eventual emphasis on heavy loading (1-6 RM)
at least 3-min rest periods between sets
moderate contraction velocity
1-2 s concentric, 1-2 s eccentric
Hypertrophy training
1-12 RM in periodized fashion
emphasis on the 6-12 RM zone
1- to 2-min rest periods between sets
Moderate contraction velocity
Higher volume, multiple-set programs
Power training
Two general loading strategies
Strength training
Use of light loads
30-60% of 1 RM
Fast contraction velocity
2-3 min of rest between sets for multiple sets per exercise
Emphasize multiple-joint exercises
Especially those involving the total body
Local muscular endurance training
Light to moderate loads
40-60% of 1 RM
High repetitions (> 15)
Short rest periods (< 90 s)
Recommendations should be viewed in context of individual’s target goals, physical capacity, and training status
|
