Strength Training

Strength Training Introduction

Many people associate strength training only with athletes. At one time, perhaps, strength training was reserved only for athletes. Certainly the world of muscle building (apart from body building) was relatively unknown. But all that has changed in the last few generations as the health benefits of muscle strength and endurance have become known for men and women of all ages.

As a result of technological advances, societal changes, and personal choices, all of us place fewer demands on our muscular systems.

• Just 2 or 3 generations ago, wood was cut with hand saws.
  
  
• Stairs were far more common than elevators, and children walked to and from school.
  
  
• Recreational time was spent engaged in playing ball, climbing trees, running, jumping, and hide-n-seek, instead of parked in front of a video terminal playing video and computer games.
  
  
• Simultaneously, in the United States, food has become less expensive (as a percentage of average income levels), more abundant, and more widely available.
  
  

It's easy to see how this combination of events has led to increased body fat. Although technology and automation provide for more comfortable lives and more leisure time, a price is paid by our muscular systems.

Our bodies are miracles of adaptability, capable of altering themselves in response to loads placed upon them in such a way that future, similar loads will be less stressful. Likewise, they can and will adapt to having no demands placed upon them, becoming increasingly weaker and less capable.

In an earlier age when so much time was spent engaged in physically demanding activities, peoples' muscular systems were stimulated vigorously. So going out of the way to engage in strength training was generally unnecessary.

Today, however, unless you have a job that requires a great deal of physical activity, to ensure optimal health and maintain your functional capacities, you may have to give back a little of the leisure time you've gained through technology and mechanization and purposely stress your muscular systems with a program of strength training.