Strength Training Lombard, IL
What exactly IS Strength Training?
The Fast answer? Getting stronger. duh!
First, let us start with how WE implement strength training at All Day Fitness, and then we can go into the basic idea of it and what strength training is.
How All Day Fitness implements strength training and personal training is completely personalized based on current stats and numbers, current lifestyle, current muscle imbalances, current experience, past injuries and then of course the goals and what the client is looking for. You will understand the “WHY” of your program and learn what to do for YOUR body based on everything you tell us.
Some people want a healthier lifestyle. Others have a special occasion coming up such as wedding, vacation, get together, military test or sporting event. And even more people are just ready to learn how to build their own strength training program correctly because they have never had a structured program to follow before. Whatever YOUR reason is, let us know and we will take care of you and get you set up.
The not so fast answer for what strength training is, is that when you put your muscles and body under a certain stress, it will try its very best to surpass and overcome it. So when you have a CONSISTENT routine with strength training you can slowly get stronger and stronger. The same is NOT true when you stop though as your body will lose it way faster as again, it will adapt to HOWEVER you use it, including NOT using it. Some different types of strength training:
1.) Endurance Strength Training – Basically how long you can last. This will require aerobic and anaerobic pathways. A popular way to do this is bodyweight work outs. A great way to gauge how strength is coming along is by just watching reps go up or time get longer during an exercise or even being able to add extra weight to your bodyweight exercises.
2.) Speed Strength – Basically Sprints. What you are practicing is how fast your muscles go from stretched all the way out to shortened. Because your muscles actually have to go through such a full range of motion, if you want to be faster then you need to pretty flexible and mobile. Always good for athletic performance and should be a staple with any athlete.
3.) Agile Strength – Agility. Think of a football player doing his route, running out and then quickly cutting left and then right on the drop of a dime. Being fluid with overall velocity, speed and acceleration and even a little deceleration. A weighted vest on while you do movement drills would be great or a lot of different pro’s and studies suggest to mix it up with farmer carries ands to change up tempo and directions while doing so.
4.) Explosive Strength – Anything you can think of that demands the most amount of power as fast as possible. Explosive movements would be like jump squats, jumping lunges, push ups with a clap, pull ups with a clap, hand stand exercises and even certain ab exercises if its body weight. A great way to work on this is most powerlifting and most olympic exercises like snatches. Again, anything explosive with a pretty decent amount of weight. An amazing benefit from this specific type of strength training is it improves the resiliency of muscle and connective tissues.
5.) Starting Strength – Going from nothing to instantly doing the work. This type of strength training gets a little neglected honestly. When is the last time youve heard of someone doing 10 reps from a dead start? Usually we go hard and fast and get the set over with while keeping tension on the muscle the entire time. To work STARTING strength, you would do something like a squat where you sit on the bench and then explode back up or the first kettlebell swing from a starting position. Things like that where your muscle has to go from nothing to something as fast as possible. You could also just completely stop between reps on a machine. That would be an easy way to let the muscle quickly relax and get back to the complete start of the rep.
6.) Maximum Strength – Down on the list for a reason. Not a starting point for most and for good reason. This is the dreaded “One Rep MAX” you hear people talk about. The absolute heaviest you can lift. Powerlifting is a great way to test this. You should be pretty well versed in your fitness journey first before you try this otherwise serious injury can occur. Its also a great idea to have a spotter or even ask a professional for some guidance to make sure you are safe. This form of strength training actually helps increase bone density and strength which will no doubt help later in life.
7.) Relative Strength – The only one that takes a more personal approach than the others on the list. This is kind of a combination of the others on the list and varies from person to person. Its basically how strong you are for YOUR stats. (i.e weight, height etc.) If you have ever heard someone say “Dang, that person is pretty strong for only being 150 lbs.” That is basically relative strength. No specific way to improve this but highly recommended to work on the other types of strength on the list to assist this.
