There are a number of reasons why you may wish to incorporate exercise into your routine, ranging from feeling fitter to looking more toned.
Despite this, one of the most popular reasons for exercising is to build strength. Unfortunately, though, if you’re looking to be as strong as engineering steel, this is no easy feat. Building strength is an arduous process, and it’s not one that happens overnight.
In order to build your strength, you’re going to need to push yourself to your limit on a regular basis. To that end, detailed below are just some of the ways of building strength effectively.
Warm Up
First and foremost, weightlifting is the same as any other exercise when it comes to warming up. If you’re preparing to lift heavy weights, you must first warm up your muscles effectively. This might include dynamic exercises like windmills, leg kicks, arm circles, lighter weight sets, or a bout of aerobic activity.
Regardless of which mode of warm-up you opt for, you can’t risk missing this out. Without a warm-up, your muscles are much more likely to go into shock, causing strains and tears. As a result, you’ll be taken out of the weightlifting game for some time, stunting your progress.
Concentrate on Form
There’s no point in lifting heavier weights if your form is sacrificed to achieve such. Many people make the mistake of going for the heaviest weight that they can physically lift; however, this isn’t the most effective way of making progress.
Just because you can technically lift a weight, that doesn’t mean that it’s the right weight for you to be working with. Instead, you should lift the heaviest weight that allows you to maintain your form. When you’re able to maintain this form, you will know that your muscles are being worked properly.
Prioritize Progressive Overload
In order to improve your strength, you should increase the number of your repetitions. For instance, you might keep the weight heavy, around >80% 1RM, and increase the number of sets to 3-5.
If you’re working on strength rather than endurance, you’ll benefit more from heavier weights and fewer reps, as the aim is to push your muscles to their limits. By being pushed to this extent, they’ll start to get stronger. Therefore, when the weights you started your journey with start to feel easier to lift, it’s time to progress to a heavier weight.
Try Compound Exercises
Compound exercises involve multiple joints, which is ideal for people who don’t like to spend hours pumping iron. The bench press and squat are great examples of compound exercises, as they engage various muscles.
Unfortunately, there’s no healthy way to see rapid results, but compound exercises will allow you to see results quicker than single-joint isolation exercises. As a result, it can’t be denied that compound exercises have incredible value in strength training routines. Any way that you can maximize your body’s output is sure to provide you with worthwhile results.
Remain Consistent
If you want to see results at a reasonable rate, then you should aim to work out consistently, around three times a week. You can either stick to full-body workouts or alternate between upper- and lower-body workouts. That said, if you’re going to alternate, you need to ensure that it’s balanced.
Working just one section of your body means that you’ll end up looking out of proportion, and one part of your body will be much stronger than the other. So, as with anything else, consistency is key when it comes to strength training if you want to see results.
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