Strength training can make a difference in your life

Lately, exercise researchers have been showing a marked increase in their interest in strength training. They've been endorsing cardiovascular or aerobic exercise for a number of years, but their recommendation to practice strength training is much more recent.

The big reason why experts are now recommending strength training is because as a person ages, they normally experience shinkage in both number and size of muscle fibers. Those fibers will also become less responsive to signals from the central nervous system. Taken in combination, these changes contribute to losses in coordination, balance and strength. After age 30, on the average, inactive people can lose as much as 10 percent of their lean muscle mass each decade. However, the declines in strength, bone density, and muscle mass that normally go along with aging can be slowed and even reversed by strength training.

Besides building muscle, strength training can also strengthen bones and keep older people strong enough to perform routine tasks, thereby maintaing their independence. Since increased muscle burns more calories when exercising and at rest, strength training also helps with weight maintenance.

Successful strength training doesn't require a lot of time

Most people believe that a gym schedule of two hours a day, five days a week is necessary to achieve strength training results. Actually, for most people such a schedule is counterproductive, as it will eventually cause the exerciser to enter a state of what is referred to as "overtraining". This condition can actually cause one to get weaker rather than stronger, in addition to a number of other equally undesirable symptoms. In reality, one can perform a basic strength training routine of one set of six to twelve exercises two or three times a week, and this can be done at home using free weights or a home gym if one desires. A routine like this can take as little as twenty minutes.