How To Get Into Strength Training (and 3 Reasons Why)
People like to get in shape, right? It’s a no-brainer. They want to look good, feel good,
and be more physically attractive. But then they hit the gym, see all the different kinds of
equipment, they start to get overwhelmed by a lot of things that come with exercising
and working out. They don’t know where to start, and that’s enough for a lot of people to
lose motivation and quit. So how do you remedy this? Let’s say you’ve finally decided to
hit the gym, how do you get started?
Well, in this video, I want to talk about strength training, and why you should do it. Now,
the idea of strength training isn’t as simple as it sounds. If let’s say you’re doing a bench
press for example, isn’t that strength training? The act of moving against a weighted
resistance? Not necessarily.
To quote Mark Rippetoe, author of Starting Strength, “strength training is the systematic
process of increasing the weight you can lift.” When you’re doing a bench press with
100 lbs one week, then 105 lbs the next week, that’s strength training. You’re focusing
on how heavy of a weight you can move. Athletes of different sports incorporate a form
of strength training in their routine, especially in sports like football and mixed martial
arts that require them to move explosively. But just because they do it doesn’t mean
you shouldn’t! And here are three reasons why:
The first reason is that in strength training, it’s so much easier to track progress. A
common problem of a casual gym-goer is that they come to the gym and perform a
number of exercises without a particular goal, in the hopes that they achieve that new,
muscular look. In strength training, you don’t think about that. You really just think
about the weight. Going back to the bench press example, you’re not thinking about
what the bench press does to your muscles, you’re thinking about increasing that
weight every day. And when that weight grows from 105 to 110, 115, 120, and so on, it
really motivates you to keep moving forward because you’re seeing tangible results in
front of your eyes.
And that brings me to the second reason: strength training builds confidence.
Eventually, that weight you’re lifting is going to get heavy. It might be so heavy that you
get a little nervous before giving it a try. But then you muster up the courage to try that
weight, and you actually do it! Moments like that are what will build your confidence
and they will make you feel much better about yourself. The confidence you gain
allows you to do many things outside the gym, like talking to that person you like, or
just making you more secure in yourself when adversity strikes, and so on. When
you’re strength training, you’re not just training your body, but also your mind.
Speaking of body, the last reason you should get into strength training is that it’s
actually the key to building muscle and looking better. There’s a reason why athletes,
powerlifters, and strongmen all look jacked: they all lift extremely heavy weights. A
different kind of training, like bodybuilding, may directly help you if that’s your goal in
building muscle, but in order to build muscle, you have to be strong. And that’s where
strength training comes in. It builds a solid foundation of strength to allow you to work
your body, and look better.
So now that I went over the three reasons why you should get into strength training,
how do you get started? The very first thing you need to know about strength training
is that you need to focus on big, compound exercises. These are the exercises that
use a lot of your muscles and give you the most bang for your buck. Examples of this
would be the back squat, the deadlift, the overhead press, and the bench press. What
you don’t want to focus on are those small exercises like bicep curls, crunches, or leg
extensions. When people do too many exercises, they have trouble tracking progress,
they don’t get the stimulus they’re looking for, and they end up wondering why they
aren’t growing. The truth is that you only need compound exercises. Get better at
them, and everything will take care of itself.
The second thing you need to consider is making sure you don’t go too heavy right
away. It can be tempting to go heavy right away to make progress go faster, but when
you do that, you are likely to butcher the form. Not only will bad form keep you from
lifting properly, but it puts you at a higher risk of injury. Start light, focus on good form,
and be patient. A good benefit of strength training is that it teaches you to be more
aware of your body and you get an idea if form begins to break down, but you can also
have a coach help you be honest as well.
Finally, you need to track progress. Strength training is predicated on progressive
overload, so it’s pointless to get into it if you’re not thinking about improving yourself
with every workout. You can track progress by simply writing down your workouts in a
journal or a notebook, or you can make use of apps that are designed to help you track
your workouts. Tracking your progress also helps you reflect on what you can do
better, or what you might need to adjust in your workouts.
There are plenty of popular strength training programs online available for free. The top
four programs I would recommend are StrongLifts 5x5, Starting Strength, 5/3/1, and
Greg Nuckols’ 28 free programs, each with varying levels of difficulty to your
preference. You can find the links to these programs in the description. There are a lot
of things to think about when it comes to programming especially once you’ve reached
a certain level of strength, but so long as you focus on the main exercises, you don’t go
heavier than you can handle, and you track progress over time, you’re already halfway
there.
So that’s everything you need to know about strength training if you’re just starting out.
I hope you found this video helpful, and let me know if you’ve made good progress in
your lifting journey. That’s all for this one, thanks for watching, and stay tuned!