If you want to live longer, be stronger, and more active and productive, you must strength train, meaning actually lifting weights. It's a little known secret to weight loss. Because muscle is metabolically more active than any tissue in your body, it burns more calories. The more calories your body burns the less you weigh.

Muscle weighs more than fat so if you lift weights, do not use a scale to gauge your success. You can actually gain weight (muscle) while your body shrinks (lose fat). Strength training will strengthen your mind, body, and better yet, gives the ability for you to change the shape of your body.

There are several basics to strength training. But to ensure safety, you must be grounded in proper form. I suggest getting videos to watch so to learn proper form. Ask the staff at your gym to show you proper form on both the machines as well as the free weights. With that being said, there are eight major muscle groups to work. The back (latissimus dorsi) the chest (pectoral muscles) front leg (quadriceps) back of the legs (hamstrings) shoulders, biceps (upper front arm) triceps (under arm), and calves.

Always start with the largest muscles and then move on to the secondary ones. Example, train your chest before your shoulders. This being because you do not want to fatigue the muscle too fast, you want to use most of your strength on the larger muscles first. Progress is usually gauged using reps (repetitions) and sets. The rep is a single exercise combined within a set.

For example, if an exercise says 3 sets of 10 reps that means each 10 lifts, pushes, pulls, ect., is one set. It's very important to start with a weight that you can lift 10 reps with and at the end of the set, feel as if you can't lift another or that it would be very difficult to.

For beginners; people who have never lifted weights, or for heavy people, 1-3 pounds to start is good. It may not seem like very much weight but you'll be amazed how quickly you will fatigue.

Intermediate should start with 5-8 pounds, and advanced with 10 pounds or above. Do not worry if starting at a beginning level your strength will increase rapidly (within 12 weeks).

© 2003 by Shawn Hamilton