Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also; cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chistling your statue.

Plotinus (circa 250 BC)

 

STRENGTH TRAINING FUNDAMENTALS

You're setting yourself up for musculo-skeletal dysfunction if you don't have a regular and systematic strength training program. As the muscles become weaker their ability to hold the body in its correct alignment are greatly diminished.

 

You can imagine, for instance the cause of your neck problem. The muscles of your neck and shoulders are not strong enough to hold you head on top of your shoulders. The head tilts forward and starts straining the muscles which start hurting. Sooner or later bones are moved out of alignment. Then it really hurts. A quick rub down, an anti-inflammatory and a muscle relaxant do nothing to fix the problem.

I've outlined two approaches to strength training. You can work out at home without much equipment, or you can go to a gym.

 

I recommend you do both. Go to a gym because you get a more systematic workout for strengthening the major muscle groups of your body.

 

It doesn't matter what age you are. Gyms world=wide are filling up with people in their 60's, 70's and 80's, all dedicated to keeping strong and flexible.

 

Most of the falls in older people are caused by lack of strength. Osteoporosis comes with lack of weight-bearing exercise.

 

STRENGTH

Strength is the ability of a muscle to exert a force.

 

Lack of strength is one of the main contributors to musculo-skeletal injury. 40% of people are not strong enough to push a pen or tap a keyboard without getting a crook back, stiff neck, frozen shoulders or RSI.

 

Muscle strength and tone can be enhanced by working against a resistance in a regular and systematic strength training program.

Include the major muscle groups in your workouts: legs, trunk, arms and shoulders.

 

I recommend a strength training program that includes the following exercises, sets and repetitions.

 

STRENGTH AND MUSCLE BULK

The strength training program outlined below, with its high number of overall repetitions and ever increasing weight will provide you with a balanced approach to improving muscle strength (heavier weights, low repetitions) and muscle bulk, (lower weights, high repetitions).

 

Maintaining muscle bulk is essential if you are to keep your metabolic rate up. If your metabolic rate drops and you keep eating the same amount of food, you'll start putting on fat. Therefore an essential aspect of a fat loss program is to improve muscle bulk so you burn off more calories, even without exercising.

 

FREQUENCY

Three times a week is ideal.

 

WARM UP

I recommend that you spend 30 or more minutes on an aerobic machine, - use a bike, treadmill, eliptical, climber or stepper, or go for a fast walk, shuffle of jog before you start a weight training session. Make sure you get a good sweat up.

 

The second aspect of the warm up will be the first set of repetitions of each exercise. If the number of repetitions is high it will have its own warm up effect. I recommend you do 12 repetitions in the first set.

 

WEIGHT, SETS AND REPETITIONS

Repetitions of each exercise are grouped together in sets. 3 - 4 sets is about right for getting a good mix between building strength and muscle bulk. Three is OK. Less than that and you don't have sufficient stimulus to improve strength or muscle bulk.

 

1st set	Start with a weight that you can lift comfortably for about 12 repetitions. This will have its own warm-up effect and prepare you for the heavier weights to follow
2nd set	Up the weight and aim to do 10 repetitions
3rd set	Up the weight and aim to do 8 repetitions
4th set	Up the weight and aim to do 6 repetitions

 

STRENGTH TRAINING FUNDAMENTALS

Using trial and error, you will soon gain an appreciation of the amount of weight that is right for you for each set. Increase the weight to the point where you can just reach the desired number of repetitions.

 

THE EXERCISES - the muscle groups and sequence

I recommend you do a work-out which includes exercises for the major muscle groups of your body. I recommend you pair them up and do them in the following order.

 

1. Arms and upper body	Bench press Pectoral and triceps	Seated row Rhomboids and biceps
2. Legs	Leg extention Quadriceps, buttock and calves	Leg curl Hamstrings and lower back
3. Arms and upper body	Shoulder press Deltoid and triceps	Lat pulldown Latissimus and biceps

4. Trunk

Sit-ups Abdominals, hip flexors Quadriceps and tibials

Back extension Back extensors

Hip flexor Hip flexors

 

Supersets

It is very time consuming to do the exercises for one muscle group at a time. I recommend pairing two exercises and doing them together; eg leg extension and leg curl.

 

Start off doing by doing a set of leg extensions and then move to the leg curl. During the leg curl set, the leg extensor muscles get a rest and vice versa. This method of strength training is called a superset routine.

 

In a superset routine you go through the whole routine of three or four sets for each two muscle groups as though it were a mini-circuit. This keeps the strength training action in the same area of the body whilst giving each muscle group time to recover before the next set of repetitions.

 

I've grouped the exercises in such a way that you can work through the exercises quickly and systematically and so that you can give each muscle group a rest between sets.

 

In effect you are doing a mini-circuit, but one which is much more effective in increasing strength and muscle bulk.

 

Combination exercises

I've also chosen combination exercises, that is, more than one muscle group is being exercised at the same time, and indicated alongside each of the exercises below, which muscles of the body are being given a workout.

 

•   Leg extension - quadriceps and buttocks

•   Leg curl - hamstrings and lower back

•   Bench press - pectoral and triceps

•   Seated row - rhomboids and biceps

•   Overhead press - deltoid and triceps

•   Lat pull down - latissimus and biceps