Any type of exercise that builds muscle and increases your strength is beneficial for your health and wellbeing. Building a stronger body through weightlifting or bodyweight exercises also helps to improve your cardiovascular function, increases your metabolic rate and can help you to shed excess weight.
With this in mind, take a look at these top tips for building a stronger body now:
Stay active
We use our muscles every day, providing we stay active and mobile. As we get older, it’s natural for our muscles to get smaller, which decreases your strength. By increasing your daily activity, you can ensure that you maintain the muscle mass you already have. Brisk walking, gardening and even cleaning your home are all effective ways to do this. When you want to get stronger, however, you’ll need to vary your activities or increase their intensity.
Workout at home
If you’re not a fan of the gym or you simply don’t get time to go, don’t panic. You can build a stronger body using at-home workouts. Bodyweight exercises can be done anywhere and small pieces of equipment, like resistance bands, are perfect for increasing your strength at home.
Virtual exercise classes and online workouts are now widely available, and these can be a great option if you enjoy working out alongside other people or need a little extra motivation.
Vary your training
If you want to increase your overall strength, you’ll need to train different muscles. Squats and lunges will help you to build stronger glutes, for example, while sit-ups and planks will help to strengthen your core. Similarly, push-ups are great for training your arms and calf raise and lunges will help to boost strength in your legs.
Learning how to perform these exercises correctly will help you to maximise your performance and get the results you want. Furthermore, proper form will help to minimise the risk of injuries. With the right mix of resistance training, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you start to feel stronger.
Choose the right equipment
Although many people find bodyweight exercises effective, using the right equipment can help to increase your strength. At the gym, you may want to use weight machines, free weights or dumbbells but there is plenty of equipment you can use at home too. Many companies have designed compact weightlifting machines that can be used at home, for example. Alternatively, kettle balls, resistance bands, dumbbells are all great for home workouts.
Take a break
If you want to get stronger, you need to give your body time to repair itself too. Building muscle causes minor tears in the muscle fibres. While you need this to happen in order for your muscles to get bigger, you’ll need to ensure that your body has enough time to complete the cycle of repairing the muscle too.
Start resistance training now
The vast majority of people are ready to start resistance training straight away. By choosing exercises that are suitable for your current fitness level, you can begin to increase your strength and optimise your health without delay.