Weight training is beneficial to everyone who is at it! Whether you are a pro or a beginner, weight training should be a part of your workout plan.
Weight training is an organised exercise using weights, other devices or body weight to enhance strength, endurance, power and growth. People also call it ‘strength training’ and ‘resistance training’.
The success of a weight training session lies in four main factors, called FITT:
- Frequency: How often do you train
- Intensity: The hardness level
- Time: Workout duration
- Type: Which exercise
Before anyone starts weight training, an understanding of the muscles and how they work will be helpful.
Muscles and Movements
Understanding your muscles and how they function is crucial for effective strength training. Different types of muscle contractions play a key role in exercises and their outcomes.
There are two primary types of muscle contractions:
Isometric contractions: In this type of contraction, the muscle does not change in length. A common example of an isometric contraction is pushing against a wall, where your muscles are engaged but remain stationary.
Isotonic contractions: These involve the muscle both shortening and lengthening during movement. Isotonic contractions are further divided into two phases:
- The concentric phase is where the muscle shortens as it exerts force. For instance, when performing a dumbbell arm curl, the muscle shortens as you lift the weight.
- The eccentric phase is where the muscle lengthens while still under tension. The muscle lengthens in the same dumbbell arm curl as you lower the weight back down.
Eccentric contractions are particularly notable because they are often responsible for the muscle soreness experienced after a workout, as they create more microscopic muscle damage that leads to repair and growth.
Understanding these contractions and how they apply to various exercises can help you target muscles effectively and achieve better results in your strength training routine.
Joint Movements
Joint movements are closely linked to muscle contractions and are essential to understanding how the body moves during exercise. Among the various joint movements, four key ones to focus on are- flexion, extension, abduction, and adduction.
- Flexion
Flexion occurs when the angle at a joint decreases. A common example of flexion is the upward movement during an arm curl exercise. As you lift the weight, the angle in the elbow joint becomes smaller, engaging the biceps muscle.
- Extension
Extension is the opposite of flexion. It involves increasing the angle at a joint. For instance, in the same arm curl exercise, as you lower the weight back down, the angle at the elbow joint increases, which is an example of extension.
- Abduction
Abduction refers to moving a body part away from the midline of the body in the side plane. A clear example of abduction is raising a leg out to the side of the body, such as in a lateral leg raise exercise.
- Adduction
Adduction is the opposite of abduction and involves bringing a body part back toward the midline of the body. For instance, after raising the leg to the side in abduction, lowering it back to the starting position is an example of adduction.
Understanding these joint movements helps in performing exercises with proper form, targeting the right muscles, and reducing the risk of injury.
Muscle Groups
The human body consists of several important muscle groups that play a key role in movement and strength training. The primary muscle groups of interest include:
- Abdominals: Core muscles that help stabilize the body and assist in bending or twisting movements.
- Adductors: Inner thigh muscles that bring the legs toward the body's midline.
- Dorsal muscles: Located in the middle back, they assist in pulling movements and posture.
- Shoulders: These include the deltoids, which aid in lifting and arm rotation.
- Arm extensors: Muscles that straighten the arms, such as the triceps.
- Wrist extensors: Muscles that extend the wrist and fingers.
- Gluteals: Buttock muscles responsible for hip movement and stabilization.
- Arm flexors: Muscles like the biceps that bend the arm.
- Wrist flexors: Muscles that bend the wrist and fingers.
- Scapular fixers: Shoulder blade muscles important for posture and arm movement.
- Thigh flexors (hamstrings): Back thigh muscles that bend the knee and extend the hip.
- Lumbar muscles: Lower back muscles that support the spine and aid in bending.
- Surae (calves): Lower leg muscles that assist in foot movement.
- Pectorals: Chest muscles that are essential for pushing movements.
- Quadriceps: Front thigh muscles responsible for straightening the knee.
- Trapezii: Upper back muscles that support neck and shoulder movements.
Major Muscle Groups
Looking at these in broader terms, the major muscle groups can be simplified into:
- Arms
- Shoulders
- Chest
- Back
- Legs
- Buttocks
- Abdomen
Training Methods to Target Major Muscle Groups
Full-body Workouts:
Exercises like High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) or CrossFit-style routines work multiple muscle groups in a single session, providing an efficient way to target the entire body.
Split Training:
This involves focusing on specific areas of the body on different days, such as upper body workouts one day and lower body workouts the next. Split training is common in traditional bodybuilding programs.
Major Compound Lifts:
Movements like the squat, bench press, deadlift, clean and jerk, and snatch target large muscle groups and require multiple joints to work together, making them highly effective for building strength and muscle mass.
Understanding these muscle groups and training approaches allows for a more targeted and effective workout plan, ensuring balanced development and reducing the risk of injury.
Reps, Sets, and RM
Understanding the fundamental terms used in workouts is essential for designing an effective training program. Here’s what you need to know:
- Repetition (rep):
A rep refers to the completion of a single instance of an exercise. For example, one chin-up, one squat, or one arm curl counts as one repetition. - Set:
A set is a group of repetitions performed consecutively without rest. For instance, completing 10 arm curls in a row constitutes one set of 10 repetitions. - Rest Interval:
This is the duration of rest or recovery time between sets. Rest intervals can vary depending on the goal of the workout, such as building strength, endurance, or hypertrophy (muscle growth). - 1RM (Repetition Maximum):
The 1RM, or one-repetition maximum, represents the maximum weight you can lift for a single repetition of a given exercise. For example, if the heaviest weight you can lift for a single bench press is 100 pounds, that is your 1RM for that exercise. - RM for Multiple Repetitions:
The repetition maximum concept can be extended to multiple repetitions. For instance, 12RM refers to the maximum weight you can lift for 12 repetitions before reaching muscle fatigue.
These terms form the foundation of any strength or resistance training plan, allowing you to measure progress and tailor workouts to your fitness goals. Understanding reps, sets, and RM helps ensure you’re challenging your muscles appropriately while avoiding overtraining or undertraining.
A proper diet and good nutrition are essential for getting the best results from any athletic training program, including weight training.
