We hope you enjoyed our first of a 3 part series on our 360 JumpStart: The Un-Bootcamp Class. In case you missed the first article, Reason #1 – To Get Healthy, you can check it out HERE.
Reason #2: To Get Stronger
Today I’d like to steer the conversation towards the topic of strength. Now that you’ve made getting healthier a priority, it’s time to get stronger. Not crazy adonis strength, but quality ‘I want to make everything in my life better and easier’ sort of strength.
Why should you care about the importance of a quality strength component within your overall training program? Strength training increases metabolism, prevents injury, burns more calories, and enables you to actively engage with the world around you.
One of the most frequent misconceptions about getting stronger that we hear, especially from women, is that stronger equates to BIG MUSCLES, or “Bulking Up”. They are afraid to gain strength because they just want to be ‘thin’ (reminder: we talked about this as an unhealthy primary goal in our first blog). When I am talking about strength, cast out the images of The Incredible Hulk. The truth is, unless you are genetically gifted, or you specifically train with the goal of gaining muscle mass (i.e. specific training protocols, specific nutrition and supplementation support, high training frequency, and more), you will not bulk up.
Ironically, the answer to people’s aversion to lifting heavy weights is to participate in generic group fitness classes that promise to ‘tone’ your muscles. These classes typically will use light weights, for tons of reps, which in reality equates to nothing more than a 60min cardio class. There is no muscle ‘toning’ going on. Without getting too deep into the nerdy science of how the body builds and reacts to resistance training, here is the quick and dirty. When you pick up light weights and perform a myriad of repetitions, you are simply building endurance. When you pick up heavy weights for lower reps (in the 3-8 rep range), you will build tight, dense, strong, tone muscles.
In our 360 JumpStart class we carefully design your training with the perspective of building health and strength for life…and that’s a good thing. The good news is you can start down the path to a leaner, stronger, and healthier you right now. Our next 12-week program starts next week. Learn more here.
– Written by Michael S. Pilhofer