Exercise includes not only increasing your heart rate and building up your endurance with cardiovascular activities, but also strengthening your muscles and toning through resistance training. When you commit to a strength training program, you can adapt it to your own needs. You can use gym equipment, weights, bands, or just the natural resistance from your own weight. Cardio workouts are great, but they will be even better if you add strength training to your program.

Along with looking better, there are countless physiological benefits to building more muscle. Around the age of twenty or so, you begin to steadily lose small amounts of muscle with each passing day. Strength training will help reverse that. More muscles also means you burn off more calories, even when you are not working out.

As a side benefit to having stronger muscles, you will also strengthen your ligaments and bones. Stronger muscles also takes the pressure off of your joints, which means less wear and tear on the them. You will ultimately be more prepared to handle just about any physical activity without giving it a second thought.

Effective strength training requires deliberate and steady movements. Jerking or swinging will only result in injury. Allow two seconds to perform the first stage of the exercise, two seconds to hold at the point of tension, and four seconds to return to the beginning point. What is important here is that you make your muscles do the work without relying on the inertia of the weights. A relaxed and steady breathing pattern will help fuel your muscles.

Choose a level of resistance that will allow you to comfortably do eight complete reps of an exercise. Perform three sets of eight reps each. Rest in between each set for a minute or two. If you want to be in and out of a workout session quickly, increase the resistance so you can barely do eight reps without breaking form. Push through one set, completing as many reps as possible. Make note of the number of reps you did and the weight. This is called exercising to failure or fatigue. Move on to the next exercise. After you can do 12 reps in each of the sets you perform, you are ready to add on a small amount of weight and strive for a smaller number of reps at your next session.

The process of working out rips muscles. They then build themselves up stronger than before. It takes two days of rest for the muscles to mend. By working out again too soon, you risk not getting the results you desire. If you exercise all your muscles during a workout, do not work strength train more than two or three times a week. Another failsafe method is working the upper body one day and the lower body the following day. Whichever method you choose, be sure to hit each major muscle group during the week.

Work the glutes, quads, thighs, hips, calves, and hamstrings of the lower body. Squats and lunges will cover the majority of the leg muscles. You will be working all areas of your shoulders, upper and middle regions of your back, arms, and chest when you concentrate on upper body. The ultimate exercises for the entire upper body are pull-ups and push-ups. Good old-fashioned crunches will target the abs.

Resistance training will produce results whether you hit the gym or use bottled water as weights. The effort you put into strengthening your body will pay off in the long run. There's a new body in your future! Stay the path!