Get Strong!

Strength training, weight lifting, body sculpting, body building ... whatever you call it, the act of using your muscles against some resistance to increase strength and muscle tone has been the subject of controversy for decades. Women fear bulky muscles or injury. Endurance athletes and sprinters worry that too much muscle will slow them down. The truth is, just about everyone can benefit from some resistance training. (And just to put your minds at rest ... women do not have enough testosterone to build the bulky muscles of our male counterparts.)

The benefits

There are a number of good reasons to add some resistance work to your fitness program:

• Fat burning: Muscle uses more energy than fat. By increasing your muscle mass, you can increase your metabolism and burn more body fat both during cardiovascular exercise and when you're at rest.
• Injury prevention: The beauty of joints like our shoulders, knees, and hips is that they provide a wide range of motion that allows for movement in all planes. This movement is what makes sports like tennis, skiing, volleyball, and baseball possible. However, these joints need to be surrounded by strong muscles to keep everything in line and prevent injury.
• Better posture:When muscles are strong and symmetrical, posture falls right into place. Over 40% of American suffer from back pain; well-aligned posture is the only way to avoid back problems.
• Osteoporosis prevention:Research has shown that weight-bearing exercises increases bone density for stronger bones and connective tissues.
• Sleek appearance: While physical appearance is not an ideal motivation for exercise, there's no denying that toned muscles are attractive, and for athletes in competitive environments, the psychological edge of "looking the part" can be an important one.

In addition, a 1995 study published in the National Strength and Conditioning Association Journal announced some impressive results. Timothy Quinn, Ph.D., studied the effects of weight-training on six female distance runners who had never lifted weights regularly. After 10 weeks of strength training three days a week, the women increased their lower-body strength by 34 percent and their upper body strength by 24 percent. Even better, though, was the effect on their running. The efficiency with which their muscles produced oxygen (their "running economy") improved by 4 percent. For a woman that runs about an 8-minute mile in a 10k race, that means a minute and a half savings in total time. Says Quinn, "You can see significant improvement even if you lift just two days a week."

When combined with aerobic conditioning, resistance training can dramatically improve your sports performance and endurance. Increased strength, especially in the large muscles of the torso, can help you maintain proper form and body alignment during exercise. This can mean less fatigue and a more enjoyable workout. Sports that require quick, explosive moves -- voleyball, tennis, hocky, basketball -- show marked improvement when weights are used in training.

General guidelines

Like stretching, there are a number of safety and effectiveness guidelines that are essential to successful strength training. They are:

• overload
• reps and sets
• exercise selection and order
• speed of contraction and breathing
• frequency & rest

Each of these principles is described below.

Overload

The way we make our muscles stronger is by stressing them, allowing them to rest and adapt to that stress, and then re-stressing them with a heavier weight or a different exercise. This is the principle of overload. In order to continue to progress, you'll need to change your resistance program every 12 weeks or so -- either by increasing the weight you're lifting or by changing the exercises you do.

Reps and sets

A rep is one repetition of an exercise and a set is a designated number of repetitions. For instance, most personal fitness trainers recommend that you start with 2 sets of 15-18 repetitions of a resistance exercise. To add intensity to your program, you can increase the weight you're using and decrease the number of reps, or you can keep the weight the same and do three sets instead of two. In each case, you're increasing the overload on the muscle.

Exercise selection & order

To maintain symmetry in your musculature you should work muscles in pairs: biceps/triceps, chest/back, all three heads of the deltoids (shoulders), quadriceps/hamstrings, calves/shins. In general, it's best to work the larger muscle groups first (chest, back legs), then move on to the smaller muscles. The larger muscle groups depend on the smaller muscles as facilitators; if the small muscles are fatigued, they aren't much help in the larger movements.

Speed of contraction & breathing

We've all seen the musclemen of Venice Beach, pumping their giant dumbbells as quickly as they can. Too bad they're using momentum instead of muscle power. To get the most out of resistance exercises, it's important to contract and release the muscles slowly. Try to contract the muscle for a count of two and release for a count of four, exhaling as on the concentric (contraction) phase and inhaling on the eccentric (relaxing) phase. Our strength is really built on that eccentric phase, as we fight against gravity's pull on the weight. The breathing pattern may be difficult at first, but as you increase your resistance your breathing can actually help you focus and lift increasingly heavier weights.

Frequency & rest

The number of times you lift weights every week depends on the program you choose. It's important to allow at least one day of rest after working a muscle group with weights. If you plan to work both upper and lower body on the same day, you should lift 2-3 times per week. If you'd like to lift weights everyday, you can work your upper and lower body on alternating days. The imporance of rest cannot be overestimated. Without sufficient recovery time, your strength, endurance, and coordination cannot improve.

Body parts

In case you're still not convinced that a resistance training program is for you, here's a round-up of where each muscle is located and how we use each of them.

Biceps

With palms of your hands facing front, your biceps are located on the front of your upper arm. If you imitate Popeye and "flex your muscles," you are contracting your biceps. These muscles are used in everyday activities like turning doorknobs, opening spaghetti sauce jars, and lifting a glass of water to your lips.

Triceps

A friend of mine refers to her triceps as the "Hi, Janes" because when she waves to her friend Jane across the room, her triceps wave, too. These muscles, located on the back of the upper arm, are essential for removing objects from shelves, as well as sinking a free throw from the foul line and throwing a ball to catch a runner at home.

Chest and back

As the primary muscles of the upper torso, this power pair is used in every upper body movement. Throwing, lifting, pulling, and pushing actions all originate from these large muscle groups, and strength here translates into increased endurance in every sport.

Deltoids

There are actually three muscles that make up the shoulder: the anterior (front), posterior(rear), and lateral (side) deltoids. Responsible for providing power to your arm movements and maintaining the stability of your rotator cuff, deltoids are also used in just about every athletic activity: swimming, boxing, softball, baseball, volleyball, tennis, and basketball, just to name a few.

Quadriceps

The four thigh muscles known as the quads are found on the top of your thigh. They are responsible for proving power to your legs and stabilizing your knees. Sports like skiing, in-line skating, fencing, hiking, step aerobics, and a swimming kick all rely heavily on strong quadriceps.

Hamstrings

Located in the back of your thigh, the hamstrings are used extensively in walking, running, and sports that require jumping and kicking: soccer, kick boxing, field events, and American football. Training these muscles for power not only improves sports performance, but helps prevent injury in this hard-working, vulnerable muscle group.

Calves

One of the most shapely muscles in the body, the calves are abused by the high heels required by many careers. It's essential that this muscle be stretched regularly, in addition to keeping it strong to prevent injury and discomfort. The calves get a workout in activities like fencing, jump rope, water aerobics, and dancing.

Lift weights to lift your spirits

With a minimal commitment to weight training you can improve your strength, endurance, posture, sports performance, and even your state of mind. Regular resistance training has been shown to increse self-esteem and alleviate depression and anxiety. It can also be a great stress-reducer. Why not print out the Basic Training Program, grab a pair of dumbbells, and commit to trying a resistance program for 12 weeks? A little strength goes a long way.

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Stretch Your Fitness Level

Creating a balanced program means devoting equal time to all the components of good health and fitness. This is the first in a six-part series of articles which address the building blocks of a balanced lifestyle:

* flexibility
* strength
* endurance
* balance
* nutrition
* rest

Stretching is an important component in injury prevention. It has also been shown to enhance sports performance, increase relaxation and body awareness, and relieve pain. To achieve all of these benefits, however, it's essential that stretching be done carefully and correctly.

Before or after

There is much controversy surrounding the question of when during a workout stretching should be done. The safest answer seems to be to stretch when the muscles are warm. That means a 5-10 minute, low-level aerobic warm-up before you even think about stretching. In anticipation of your cardiovascular workout, you might want to do some very light work of the muscles you'll be using in the workout, but save the deep stretches for afterwards. It's not only safer, but it's a wonderfully relaxing way to end your day's work.

Slow and steady

Remember the days of gym uniforms and bouncing stretches? It's time to toss out both of them. A slow static stretch that allows the muscle to relax gradually is the safest course of action. Our muscles are equipped with a safety mechanism called the stretch reflex. If we try to lengthen the muscle too quickly or forcefully, it responds with a reflexive contraction -- it shortens the muscle in a protective response to the stress, so the muscle is tightened, rather than relaxed. To get the most out of your stretch, begin the exercise gently and hold it in place.

How low can you go?

The essence of stretching is to lengthen the muscle ONLY to the point of gentle tension. This is an excellent time to listen to your body; stretching should NEVER hurt. When starting a stretch, take a nice deep breath in and slowly release the breath as you gradually relax into the stretching position.

To return muscles to their "natural" length after your workout, hold the stretch for approximately 15-30 seconds. This will relax the muscle from the repeated contractions of exercise, thus helping prevent injury. To increase your flexibility, after the initial 30-seconds, try relaxing further into the stretch and hold this position for an additional 15-30 seconds. Remember to stretch only to the point of comfortable tension and stop immediately if you feel any pain in joints or muscles.

Don't forget to breathe

Deep, rhythmic breaths help relax our muscles and our minds. Close your eyes during stretching and focus on your breathing. At the point where the tension in the muscle begins to release, take a deep breath, filling your lungs and expanding your diaphragm. As you slowly exhale, relax further into the stretch and feel the tension in the muscle melt away.

How often?

Your body will respond very positively to gentle stretching. In an ideal world, we'd all have time to start the day with a lovely warm-up and a half-hour of uninterrupted stretching. In the real world, lots of people skip out of the stretching at the end of aerobics classes and we run, run, run right from the running path to the shower and off to work, without taking necessary cool-down time. Minimally, you should stretch twice a week to keep your muscles limber and your mind relaxed.

Body parts

There are five major body segments that need to be stretched for optimal fitness, no matter what your sport or fitness activity -- shoulders/arms, chest, back, hips, and legs. Since we're all online, it's imperative that we also stretch the delicate areas of our wrists to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome.

Shoulders/arms

Our shoulders are a wonderful joint. We can swing our arms in any direction we please. That wide range of motion has its price, however; the rotator cuff is an unstable joint. With so many sports dependent on our shoulders, we need to keep them healthy. Anyone sidelined by a rotator cuff injury knows it can be painful and frustrating. The key to healthy shoulders is strengthening the surrounding muscles (which we address in a future article) and maintaining flexbility.

Chest
Any activity that we do with our arms reaching in front of our bodies -- driving, reading, typing, swimming, tennis -- uses our pectoral muscles and causes them to contract. Gradually, as these muscles get stronger, they pull our shoulders forward and, in the process, pull our spines out of alignment. By stretching the chest and strengthening the back, we can stand straight again.


Back
Over 40% of Americans suffer from back pain at some time during their lives. With increasing amounts of time spent seated in front of computer monitors and driving in our cars, we are destroying our posture. In addition, most of us carry our stress in either our upper or lower back muscles. Again, by strengthening these areas and stretching them out, we can avoid the nuisance of back trouble.

Hips
Happily, our hips are one of the strongest and most stable joints we have. But repetitive sports like skiing, snowshoeing, cycling, and running can take their toll. The ball and socket joint of the hip acts as a suspension system for our whole body, absorbing the impact of every footfall. And if the rest of our body is out of alignment, the hip suffers, too. By keeping other areas of our bodies limber and lined up correctly, and by gently stretching the muscles around this joint, our hips can carry us through everyday actvities and demanding workouts.

Legs
I don't want to overstate the obvious here, but our legs are essential elements in just about every sport or activity in which we participate. Balance is the key to keeping leg muscles functioning at optimum levels. The pairs of muscles that make up the upper and lower leg -- quadriceps in the front of the thigh, hamstrings in the back and gastrocnemius in the calf and anterior tibialis in the shin -- need to be stretched and strengthened equally. Even a walk around the block is a chore when our leg muscles aren't at their best.

Wrists
About 23,000 American are afflicted with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) every year. While it's generally caused by repetitive motion of the hands and wrists, it can also be caused by diabetes, pregnancy, and obesity. In most cases, repeating the same motion for extended periods of time brings on inflamation of the tendons that run through the carpal tunnel of the wrist. If the tendons become inflamed enough, the median nerve gets pinched as it passes through the tunnel, causing pain in the hand and wrist, numbness, decreased grip strength, and swelling. CTS can be caused by raquet sports, cycling, bowling, baseball, softball, tennis, piano playing, knitting, and of course, typing. Be sure to use your wrist pads when surfing the net and do these CTS avoidance exercises regularly:

Median Nerve Gliding Exercises

* Make a light fist palm, facing you
* Extend your fingers toward the ceiling with wrist in a neutral position
* Gently flex your hand back toward your forearm, palm up
* Open your thumb away from your fingers
* Turn your hand palm up
* With your other hand, gently pull your thumb away from your other fingers

Hold each position for 3 seconds and repeat the sequence 5 times

S-t-r-e-t-c-h yourself

Stretching can be a relaxing, energizing reward for a workout well-done. For optimum performance and peace of mind, make a stretching segment part of your workout routine.

Stretching Program

Print out this page and add stretching to Your workout routine



Stretching Tips

* Always move slowly when stretching. Take this time to relax and focus on your breathing.

* Depending on what you choose, music can help energize or relax you. Keep your goal in mind when selecting your stretching soundtrack.

* When lying on your back, ALWAYS move your legs one at a time. Sudden movements with both legs can strain the muscles of the lower back.
* Stretch ONLY to the point of gentle tension. If something hurts, stop immediately. Stretching should feel good.

* Try to stretch at least twice a week. This workout can take as little as 7-10 minutes, or as long as you'd like. A few minutes every week can improve your performance, prevent injuries, and put your mind at ease. Enjoy.

Progressive Stretching
1. Full-Body Stretch Lie on your back, arms reaching overhead, legs extended. Point your toes and reach with your fingertips, making your body as long and tall as possible. Breathe deeply and relax into the floor.
2. Back & Hip Flexors Lie on your back with your knees pulled into your chest, arms wrapped around them. After 10 seconds, gently curl your head up toward your knees -- be careful not to hold your breath. Hold for 15 seconds. Lower your head to the floor and stretch one leg long while holding the other knee into your chest. Hold for 15-30 seconds, then slowly switch legs. Perform all movements gently, moving one leg at a time.
3. Lower Back With knees pulled into your chest, lower them to the right side one at a time, keeping them bent. Gently press knees to the floor and turn your head to the left. Hold, breathing deeply. Bring knees back to the center one at a time and lower to the left, turning head to the right. Keep your arms below shoulder level to minimize strain on the back.
4. Hamstrings Lie on your back with both knees bent, feet flat on the floor. Gently extend one leg toward the ceiling and place your hands behind your thigh or calf for support. Hold in place, then slowly rotate your ankle in both directions and flex & point your toes. Relax your foot, take a deep breath in, and as you exhale, gently pull your leg closer to your head to increase the stretch. Repeat with the other leg.
5. Hips With knees bent and feet flat on the floor, cross your right ankle over your left knee. Lift your left foot off the floor, bringing your knee in toward your chest. This should create a deep stretch in the back of your right hip. Move slowly and breathe into the stretch. Hold and repeat with the left leg.
6. Quadriceps Roll onto your stomach and lie flat with the palm of your left hand flat on the floor and your chin resting on your hand. Reach around to your right ankle with your right hand and bring your foot slowly toward your buttocks, creating a gentle tension in the front of your right thigh. Hold and repeat with the left leg.
7. Carefully sit up By now, your body is in a relaxed state. The easiest way to sit up without losing your mind-body connection is to bring your knees into your chest and place your hands behind your knees. Pull your abdominal muscles in tightly and rock yourself up into a sitting position. You may rock yourself a few times to create enough momentum to sit.
8. Shoulders To relax your shoulders and neck, imagine your shoulder blades pulling down toward the floor. Slowly rotate your shoulders to the front 4 times, and to the back 4 times. Stretch your arms long and wrap them around yourself in a big hug. Be sure to keep your abs pulled in tightly to support your back. Gently tuck your chin to your chest and breathe deeply.
9. Upper Back & Chest Lace your fingers together in front of your chest, palms facing you. Relax your shoulders and press your arms straight out in front of you. You should feel a nice stretch through your upper back. Release your arms and lace your fingers behind your lower back. Again, press your shoulders down and feel a stretch through your chest. Breathe deeply.
10. Lower Back & Buns Sit up tall and cross your legs with the left leg in front. Take a deep breath and as you exhale, stretch over your right knee, leading with your chest. Hold, then reach to the center, feeling a stretch through your buns and inner thigh. Use your hands to press yourself up and change legs. With the right leg in front, stretch over your left knee. Again, stretch to the center.
The Big Finish Now, sit up tall. Pull your abs in tight and press your ear over to your shoulder. Hold and stretch to the other side. Bring your head back to the center, take a deep breath and reach your arms up overhead. Pause for a few seconds, then relax your shoulders, exhale, and slowly lower your arms.Congratulations! You are finished for today!