Exercise and Lifting Weights

Exercise and lifting weights is an essential part of good health. In order to maintain optimum health, you need to incorporate all aspects of exercise including weight lifting. The major parts of exercise include:

• Cardiovascular exercise (aerobic activity and/or endurance training)
• Strength training (weight lifting or some other strength training activity)
• Flexibility training (such as stretching or yoga)

Lifting weights is one of the many ways that you can improve both muscular strength and muscular endurance. Both of these aspects of fitness are important in not only keeping your body healthy, but also in making your daily life easier.

Exercise and lifting weights confer a number of benefits including:

• Increased muscle strength – Having strong muscles makes it easier to do everything from opening a jar to lifting a box.
• Increased muscular endurance – When you improve your muscular endurance, you can perform sustained activities for longer periods of time without muscle fatigue.
• Increased muscle mass and/or density – Depending on your goals, exercise and lifting weights will help you to increase your muscle mass or improve the density of your muscles. In either case, the more muscle mass/density that you have, the more energy your body burns. In other words, your body burns more calories, which means you can maintain your weight at a higher caloric level or lose weight while eating more than you could if you didn’t have a higher level of muscular mass/density.

The type of weight lifting that you choose is dependent largely on your goals. Some weight lifting basics are outlined below. However, you may wish to consult with a personal trainer in order to tailor your program to suit your own individual needs.

In general, if you are using weight training for muscular endurance, then you will want to do high repetition, low to moderate heaviness exercises, with one to two exercises per body part. To do this type of training, select a weight that you can do 12 to 15 repetitions to fatigue and then do two to three sets of 12-15 reps on each body part. Machine circuit training works well for this type of training. A sample program might look like this - Perform three sets of 12-15 repetitions of the following, two to three times per week:

• Seated chest press
• Butterfly pec deck
• Seated military press
• Side lateral raises
• Pull downs
• Seated rows
• Biceps machine
• Triceps machine
• Seated leg press
• Leg extensions
• Leg curls

Strength training involves lifting moderate to heavy weights for two to three sets of eight to 10 repetitions. Select a weight that takes your muscles to exhaustion eight to 10 repetitions. Free weights are ideal for strength training, because they require greater strength and stabilization from supporting tissue. Never undertake a strength training program with free weights without first undergoing a beginning program of about eight weeks to help prepare your connective tissue for the heavier weights. Do one to two exercises per body part. A sample free weight strength training program might look like this: Perform two to three sets of eight to 10 reps of the following, making sure you hit each body part twice a week. Leave at least 48 hours of rest before you train the same body part again. A good way to break up your exercise program would be into two workout sessions done two times each per week. Days one and four can be your upper body (chest, back, shoulders, biceps, triceps). Days two and five can be your lower body (legs, lower back and abdominals). Days four, six and seven can be rest days.

• Bench press
• Butterflies
• Military press
• Side laterals
• Shrugs
• Pull-ups
• Biceps curl
• Triceps kickbacks
• Dead-lifts
• Squats
• Lunges
• Leg Extensions
• Leg Curls
• Calf raises
• Crunches.

It is possible to train strength and endurance simultaneously. One excellent way to do this is through high-intensity interval exercise circuits. These are typically done with a combination of weight training machines and aerobic machines. Here is a sample exercise circuit, done two to three times total.

• Warm up, five minutes on aerobic fitness equipment
• Seated chest press, eight to ten reps
• 60 seconds of aerobic training
• Seated military press, eight to ten reps
• 60 seconds of aerobic training
• Pull downs, eight to ten reps
• 60 seconds of aerobic training
• Biceps curls
• 60 seconds of aerobic training
• Triceps press
• 60 seconds of aerobic training
• Leg presses
• 60 seconds of aerobic training
• Leg extensions
• 60 seconds of aerobic training
• Leg curls
• 60 seconds of aerobic training
• Calf raises
• 60 seconds of aerobic training
• Crunches
• 60 seconds of aerobic training
• Repeat circuit
• Cool down, five minutes
• Stretch

As you can see, there are a variety of ways to incorporate weight lifting into your exercise program, depending on your goals. While this article can serve as a general guideline for undertaking a weight lifting program, it is always best to work with a personal trainer to set up a program tailored to your goals.

• Pictures of People Exercising
• Women Fitness Models
• Male Fitness Model

• Breast Lifting Exercise
• Contour Abs
• Naked Exercise
• Naked Pilates
• Hula Hoop Exercises

• Exercise At Home Without Weights
• Free Weights Exercise Instructions
• Free Weight Resistance Exercise
• Weight Lifting Programs for Beginners
• Free Weight Lifting Programs