A Beginner's Guide to Strength Training

You may have seen more strength based workouts popping up on The Body Coach app and The Body Coach TV, but why should you build them into your plan and what can you expect from them?

What is strength training?

Strength workouts are designed to help you build strong, lean muscles. Resistance is applied using weights, resistance bands or your own bodyweight.

What are the key benefits of strength training?

1. You get stronger

It sounds obvious but weight training helps overload your muscles, which stimulates growth and development. By gradually adding resistance, you can effectively build muscle mass over time.

2. It boosts your metabolism

As you build more lean muscle, your basal metabolic rate will increase. This means that your body will be burning more calories at rest. Also working at an intense level means your body uses more oxygen, so your metabolism has to start working harder. As a result you keep on burning energy even after you stop working out.

3. It can help reduce the risk of injury

You won't just be strengthening the big muscles when training with resistance. It also improves the health of your tendons, ligaments, cartilage, fascia and other connective tissue around the joints. This helps reduce your risk of injury, so strength training often compliments other forms of training.

4. It's great for your overall health

Strength training has loads of health benefits, including strengthening your heart, keeping your blood pressure in check and managing blood glucose levels, which can reduce risk of developing diabetes. Weight-bearing activity can also increase bone density, which is particularly important for anyone at greater risk of osteoporosis and osteopenia.

5. It helps improve your self esteem and confidence

Lifting weights makes you feel great! You can track measurable goals, challenge yourself and see how amazing the human body is. It can also boost your mood and improve your mental health.

Where can I do it and do I need lots of equipment?

You can do strength training anywhere you want, all you need is a big enough space to move safely. You don't need lots of equipment either, you can just use your own bodyweight.

If you want more of a challenge, adding weights can really take your training to the next level. Dumbbells and kettlebells are great, but you can also add resistance with water bottles, tin cans or resistance bands.

How do I get started?

Start small and build up. Start by using your own body weight. Then introduce resistance bands or light dumbbells. When you are managing 8-10 reps consistently, try adding a little bit more.

Tip! Don't ever increase the reps and weight at the same time, and always ensure you're using correct form, taking time to control the movement. Slow and steady wins the race here!

📲 Strength on The Body Coach app

If you're looking to build strength, we've got a wide range of workouts to help you build muscle and feel amazing - from bodyweight HIIT, dumbbell and kettlebell workouts, barre and yoga.

Plus, we've just launched a brand new challenge, 'Strength Week'! Joe will guide you through 5 weighted workouts in 7 days, each focusing on different muscle groups, to help you build some serious muscle and strength.

Find out more here.