Strengthen your muscles
On average, adults lose 3-5% of their muscle mass per decade. This trend can be reversed by practicing strength training exercises. Muscle building is important for several reasons: it prevents injuries, protects the joints and improves posture .
Putting a higher than normal load on your muscles causes micro-tears in the fibers that compose them. Subsequently, with rest, the body repairs these microtears, which increase the size of the fibers and make the muscles stronger.
Good for bones and muscles
Muscle building, combined with stretching, helps maintain good posture. It also increases the thickness of ligaments and cartilage, thereby stabilizing the joints, and helps relieve pain in rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis .
Muscle building also puts stress on the skeleton. Like muscles, bones respond by increasing their mass. This consolidation protects the body from fractures and degenerative conditions such as osteoporosis.
The benefit of greater muscle mass
Although strength training does not burn a lot of calories, unlike cardiomusculation, it does increase lean mass, which is the share of muscles in body weight. Each kilogram of muscle burns around 75 kcal per day for normal activity. If you increase your lean mass, then you burn more calories throughout the day, which raises your metabolism and helps you stay in shape .
Who can strengthen their muscles?
In the past, specialists advised against weight training for children, but years of study have not provided any support for this thesis. Moderate muscle building helps the skeleton and joints to develop in the long term, even in children, and studies show that postmenopausal women have fewer hip fractures if they were young girls who practiced lifting weights.
As with any physical activity, parents will ensure that certain precautions are taken. Children should use their body weight rather than external weights, and they should never do exercises that strain the spine (weight carried across the shoulders, for example).
Strength training is also beneficial for the elderly who suffer from the consequences of muscle and bone degeneration. It should be noted that muscle strength declines by 15% per decade after age 50 and by 30% per decade after age 70. And that increasing your muscle mass by just 1.5 kg negates the effects of nearly five years of age-related muscle loss.
How to strengthen your muscles
There are two main types of exercises.
These are movements performed without additional weight, which use only body mass to create a load; pumps are a good example. Although a little less effective than weight training, this type of strength training is ideal for beginners.
- Weight lifting
These are movements performed by lifting weights either freely (ballast, dumbbells, etc.), or through machines, or by a combination of the two. Weight lifting is often more productive than weight training because the weight lifted can be increased.
Which muscles to solicit?
You should choose at least one exercise per muscle group. This will help you avoid muscle imbalances, such as having strong abs but weak back, which puts the body out of alignment.
Start with exercises targeting larger muscle groups, such as the leg muscles, and continue with smaller ones. It also allows you to perform the most physically demanding movements when you are the least tired.
How fast?
Avoid sudden, rapid movements, which put more strain on muscles and ligaments, and never throw or throw weights: this can lead to injury.
1) Bodybuilding by the weight of the body
Take about 5 seconds for the work phase (lifting / pushing / pulling) and another 5 for the eccentric phase (lowering / releasing).
2) Weight lifting
In this case, the working phase (lifting / pushing) must be reduced to 2 seconds and the eccentric phase (lowering) to 3 or 4 seconds.
Breathing
Breathe continuously to get oxygen. Exhale at the most difficult time of the exercise and inhale during the easier phase (lowering the weight). Try not to block your breath so as not to increase your blood pressure.
Sets and repetitions
When you have performed a movement, you must repeat it a certain number of times; each repetition is called rep 'in sports jargon. A series is a set of reps performed without intermediate rest. You need to rest 30 seconds to 1 minute between two sets.
For example, if the instructions say three sets of ten reps for push-ups, you should do ten push-ups with no downtime, rest 30 seconds to 1 minute, then do ten push-ups without a break, rest 30 seconds to 1 minute , and finally perform the third set of ten push-ups.
Strengthen your muscles: progression
As your muscles get stronger, you need to increase the intensity of the work to achieve new results - this is the principle of gradually increasing the load. You can add weights, increase the number of reps or sets for a given exercise, or decrease the rest time between sets.
1) Bodybuilding by the weight of the body
As you progress and get stronger, slow down your movements: if you perform a movement in 10 seconds instead of 5, your muscles are working 50% harder. When you can complete the required sets at this speed, add reps to each set.
2) Weight lifting
For each exercise, start by putting on a weight that allows you to perform 8 reps and keep it until you can do 12 reps, then increase the weight by 5%. This should bring the number of reps you manage to do around 8; you keep strengthening until you can do 12 before you put on the weight again. This way you gradually increase the load on your muscles and bones.
Did you know ?
- Many women fear that their muscles will grow to excess if they are weight training. But that would require a high level of male hormone (testosterone). However, the majority of women only produce a tenth of men's testosterone levels, and they have a thinner skeleton: it is therefore difficult to have large muscles!
- Women generally have weaker bones than men and are more prone to osteoporosis .
- “According to a British study, arthritis patients saw a 43% reduction in knee pain after just four months of building muscle. "
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