May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, which has been used to promote the importance of physical activity, physical fitness and sports participation for more than 40 years. There are countless ways to be physically active, from joining recreational sports leagues and going to the gym regularly to taking after-dinner walks and chasing your kids or grandkids around the playground, and all of them are valid and have benefit.
In this blog, we’ll focus on resistance training (also called muscular training and strength training), as it’s an often misunderstood and undervalued component of an overall healthy lifestyle and provides benefits that improve not only sports performance but also the ability to maintain function and independence as we age. In addition, resistance training is an important part of getting ready to play pickleball and ultimate frisbee in safety. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend that adults perform muscle-strengthening activities on two or more days per week that involve all major muscle groups and are of moderate or greater intensity.
Benefits of Resistance Training
Resistance training, whether it’s simple body-weight exercises or workouts using free weights or gym equipment, yields important benefits to one’s health, fitness, performance and overall well-being. Here are some important benefits that you might want to consider when contemplating whether to add resistance training to your exercise routine:
Physical capacity—the capacity to work or exercise—is a measure of health that declines dramatically with age in adults who do not exercise resistance. This is because adults who do not exercise lose an average of 5 pounds of muscle tissue every decade. Enhanced metabolic function: The decrease in muscle tissue just mentioned also causes a reduction in resting metabolic rate (how many calories you burn while at rest), which results in an increase in body fat over time. Again, resistance training is the best way to combat this and prevent unwanted weight gain. Reduced injury risk and disease prevention: Strong muscles improve the ability to safely perform weight-bearing activities such as running, walking and climbing stairs. In addition, balanced muscle development reduces the risk of injury.
Additionally, resistance exercise may: Increase bone mineral density, reducing the risk of osteoporosis
Improve body composition (that is, the ratio of muscle tissue to fat tissue), which is associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease
Improve your health in the back Reduce pain associated with osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis
Reduce the prevalence of depression
Enhance the functional capacity of older people Creating a Workout
So, what is the best way to get started with a program if you are a newcomer to resistance training?
The first step is to identify your goals and experience level. You can read more about how those variables impact your workouts in the Training Variables section of The ACE Workout Builder for Split Routines. You should do one to four sets of each exercise, eight to fifteen repetitions per set, with two to three minutes of rest in between each set for general muscular fitness. Next, it’s time to think about what types of equipment you have available. If you have a gym membership, you likely have access to machines, free weights and kettlebells, for example. If you want to start working out at home, you might not have any equipment at all, but you might have some light dumbbells, resistance bands, or a stability ball. Finally, choose your exercises. Organize your workouts so that you are targeting each major muscle group (chest, back, arms, shoulders, core, hips and legs) during each workout.
The ACE Exercise Library is a good place to start because it lists exercises not only by body part but also by experience level and equipment. You can use the exercises provided there to develop a full-body workout to be performed twice each week. If you want additional variety, create two different full-body workouts to perform each week. Keep in mind that you can safely do a full-body resistance training workout up to three days a week that are not consecutive. In this first example, the individual will be working out at home with only a stability ball.
