subject: Easy Guide to Stronger Muscles [print this page] Easy Guide to Stronger Muscles Easy Guide to Stronger Muscles
Becoming stronger has many advantages. You may want to become stronger to help you with your everyday work, maybe you are recovering from an injury and need to re-strengthen your healing muscles or you may simply want to increase your strength to become more powerful. Either way when you are stronger you will be more confident and you can achieve more out of life.
To build a stronger body you will have to focus on building your muscle mass. In short bigger muscles equal stronger muscles. To build your muscles you need to train them by working out and also follow a structured diet that provides your body with the raw materials needed to build muscle.
The best exercises for your training program will be compound exercises. These are workouts that will focus on using many muscle groups in each exercise. An example is the squat which works the legs, the back and abs, the shoulders and arms.
The advantage of using compound exercises is that by including more muscles in each exercise you can lift or move more weight. The more weight you are working with the faster your body will respond, achieving gains in both size and strength. By also using free weights as compared to machines you will be including even more muscles into each workout which will develop your ancillary balance muscles. This will in turn make you stronger all over.
Have you ever noticed the difference between bodybuilders and weight lifters bodies? You will notice that a bodybuilder will have awesome muscle definition while a weight lifter will seem more bulky. This is due to the different training routines they each use. The weight lifter uses exercises that increase strength while the body builder is more focused on changing his physique.
As you train to increase your strength you will need to focus more on strength building exercises. You will not be focusing too much on muscle tone or definition however this can be trained upon at a later stage. You should aim for heavy weights with low reps, usually around 6-8 per set with your last lift hitting muscle fatigue. By sending your muscles into fatigue they are forced to grow in strength and size to be able to cope with this on the next workout. Please note that you may need a training partner to perform these exercises to prevent injury.
Also with each training session will need to attempt to increase the weight lifted when compared to the last workout. This is called progressive overload and by having a small increment in weight with each workout routine you will find it much easier to progress and increase your strength than making a larger increase in weight over longer periods of time. It will also reduce the risk of injury.
So there you have it, to increase your strength quickly you will need to focus heavily on strength training exercises and of course they will need to be performed with proper technique to prevent injury. As you are attempting to build muscle mass you will also need to follow a structured eating plan possibly with supplements and you will definitely need sufficient rest as this is when your body will build muscle and ultimately increase your strength.
