either by lifting heavy or by performing quick, athletic movements does not reduce your range of motion. If performed correctly, meaning over its whole range of motion (ROM), any exercise can improve mobility. Lifting through the entire range of motion even prevents muscles from shortening too much and can furthermore increase its length.
More strength, joint stability, mobility and bigger muscles usually also lead to a better posture. This is not only great if your main goal is to improve your looks. A good posture and the ability to keep it well and stable during movement is key to performing on your max in any sport, because it enables you to generate and redirect great forces through your pelvis and upper body and transfer those forces to your limbs efficiently. Furthermore, does good posture protect your spine including your central nervous system (spinal nerves and brain), because those structures don’t like too much movement like flexion and extension. Try bending and extending your neck continuously for a minute. It won’t feel good on the cervical spine and you will feel dizzy after a few seconds.
If you are an athlete, you will like this. It is a proven fact that you can improve your quickness just by lifting harder. Compare athletes’ bodies of any sport over the last few decades and put them in relationship with typical performances of that era. You will discover that throughout the years athletes have become more jacked and way quicker in any sport. No surprise, if we consider that resistance training has become more and more popular and important in college and professional sports since the eighties.
More powerful muscles lead to more physical safety. Of course you won’t be harassed by your neighbourhood bully anymore, take that to the bank! What we are really talking about is the ability to absorb hits in contact sports, the ability to brace your core and joints when forcefully changing direction or decelerating on a dime. The cervical spine, shoulders, knees and elbows are very vulnerable during competition. So, bulking up and strengthening those areas is certainly the best way to prevent drama.
Resistance training will furthermore help you to increase your metabolism and your hormonal balance. Most people will benefit from an increase of local energy storages like ATP, phosphocreatine and glycogen when lifting to failure. Performing circuit trainings, supersets or sets in the range of 10-15 reps and higher can furthermore enhance your lactate tolerance, which in turn increases your capacity to keep intensities up for longer time periods. Your hormonal balance will change for the better, once you start working. More testosterone will not only boost your sex drive, you will produce more human growth hormone (HGH) to facilitate recovery overnight. Well trained people are more resistant to stress because they produce less stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol in uncomfortable situations. The bottom line is that the allocation of hormones plays a huge role in body composition, mental and physical performance. By exercising and working out you can keep your hormones in check.
That said, also the cardiovascular system benefits from a well-rounded lifting routine. Not only does the heart grow thicker and slightly larger, pumping more blood per minute, thus lowering your resting heart rate. Also, blood pressure adapts to your training, if it is too high it will drop slightly, if too low it will even increase to optimal levels. All this serves one common goal: to get more oxygen and nutrients to the cells that need it in less time and with less work, while improving your blood values.
Today we know that dynamic muscular work can improve blood flow to and circulation in the brain by as much as 50%. Complex, multi-joint exercises with free weights can improve coordination, concentration, short-term memory and therefore neuro-plasticity of the brain. And don’t forget about the positive effects a good looking, healthy and strong body can have on your self-confidence, the way you communicate to others and the way others perceive you. When hard exercise leads to increased lactate release, endorphins flood the system leading to more wellbeing and a better mood during and after the workout.
The older people become, the more they feel restrained by their own bodies. Working out also means taking charge of one’s life and health because it means upping your quality of life – at any age. All the aforementioned benefits will be most important to you, when nature tries to make you feel the wear and tear of a hopefully productive and inspiring life. This is also true for any patient working out to get his or her health back in order. Along with a positive mental attitude, healthy food and one or two cardiovascular workouts (running, swimming, cycling, etc.) per week, lifting your bodyweight or additional poundage is the best drug you can administer to yourself.
Before we train
Assuming you are not a novice to the iron game and your doc did not put you on the injury list or send you to rehab, you are basically ready to go and spice up your workouts. But before you jump right in, I’d like to give you some valuable advice.
Set goals!
In resistance training as much as in any other of life’s endeavours, the mental approach is very important. To really get the results you are after, I suggest you get your pen and paper and define exactly what you want your training results to be. In all detail, with a shipload of emotions tied to your description. More important than the what will be your why. Why do you want to work out in the first place? Why do you want to change some ingredients of your workouts? Why are you willing to push your body in each session? Why will you follow a healthier diet? Why, why, why…?
Just the process of thinking about such stuff, linking the reasons together, and then writing it down, triggers some beneficial processes in your brain. A lot of good stuff happens to your hormone balance, you become more focused and more motivated. You will also start attracting more people, events and situations that help you get what you desire.
All the greats have done it and combined their written statements with regular, inspiring visualisations. Arnold Schwarzenegger could literally see every detail of a winning pose-down years in advance. Desmond Brooks, one of the greatest architects of our time, built his magnificent buildings (like the Bellagio in Las Vegas) out of pure vision in his mind’s eye and sold those projects to his clients by taking them on the same mental trip themselves.
Furthermore, you will need to have a written training plan that comprises all your workouts including the content of those sessions. Start small by setting up a quarterly plan, and when you get a feel for planning, plan half a year or a whole year in advance! What shall be the focus of your workouts at any time of the year? What will be the exercises and rep schemes (although this can be subject to a lot of change due to trial an error)? Try to really work out professionally, hopefully the same way you approach your job! The benefit is not only that you see the incremental steps in advance but that you will also know in hindsight why something worked or did not work, which in turn will make it easier to accurately plan further.
Although goals and reasons why are highly individual, there are three general goals to follow when working out or training for a competition:
Avoid injuries during workout/training!
The worst thing that can happen is to get hurt preparing for games or working out. Why? Because it is totally unnecessary and preventable. There are hundreds of options to keep your workouts save but fun and effective. Unfortunately, humans will find thousands of ways to jeopardize their safety and health. So be thoughtful and don’t jump on every fitness craze or workout bandwagon just because it seems to be hip (e.g. balance training) Most of the time, the most basic and conservative stuff will take you the farthest.
Avoid injuries during competition!
If you compete in any sport, note that it is practically impossible to eliminate the risk of getting hurt during competition! It is just part of the equation – you win something, you lose something! But by properly preparing body and mind for a game, fight or race you really can narrow it down to a few uncontrollable factors. So only when injury avoidance is taken care of, can you progress to the third big goal, which is to increase performance!
Increase Performance!
Now we’re