Healthy Habits: Strength Training

Strength Training is a type of physical exercise specializing in the use of resistance training to induce muscular contraction, which builds strength, anaerobic endurance, size of skeletal muscles and bone density [study link]. It also makes you look and feel good!

NOTE: Functional Strength Training, Traditional Strength Training, and Cross Training type Workouts in your Apple Health app count towards your Strength Habit in the Healthzilla app.

Research on the benefits of Strength Training

Regular lifting leads to sustained increases in testosterone. [study link]
Strength training reduces depression [study link]
Lifting weights help you to lose weight. Even with minimal resistance training, you are able to increase resting metabolic rate, sleeping metabolic rate, and fat oxidation. [study link]
Strength training increases bone density, can prevent osteoporosis and can even build new bone. [study link]
Strength training improves the cognitive functions of elderly [study link]
Strength training will benefit also endurance athletes. [study link]

Explosive Strength Training

While most of us are at best weekend athletes, anyone can incorporate some explosive strength training that is safe and beneficial. It is exactly what it sounds like. Strength training exercises, just done as quickly (and safely) as possible.

Benefits of Explosive Strength Training

Strength, bone density, neuromuscular adaption to higher speed.

Increased Rate of Force Development (source)
Increased tendon stiffness (source)
Nervous system adaptations to faster speeds (source)

Program for Explosive Strength Training (15 mins)

The idea here is to focus on short, explosive muscle contractions. You’re not trying to struggle against gravity here. That also means that you may need to adjust the exercises, to make sure you can do them explosively instead of barely at all.

Sets: 5 rounds circuit, no rest in between.

Switch between exercises after each set of 3 explosive reps. After each complete round, you can also choose to do a quick sprint or stair climb, if available.

#1: Jump Squat x 3

You can just jump in the air from a squat position, or if you have safe access to a stable bench you can jump on or off the bench.

#2: Drop Pushup x 3

Start from your knees on the ground, sitting on your ankles, ideally on a soft surface like a carpet. Then drop down into a pushup, and explode back up to your knees.

Easier: Drop hands against an elevated surface like the couch.

Harder: If you need more resistance, you can do a clap pushup or just narrow your hand position.

#3: Fast Pulls x 3

From there, just make three explosive pulls from bottom position up to your chin.

Harder: Might require a full pull up bar. Add a backpack for extra weight.

Extreme Isometric Strength Training

This is going to hurt, not gonna lie. If you’ve ever done a plank or a wall-sit, those are isometrics. Anything beyond a minute would count as “extreme”. Although here we don’t recommend planks, because over several minutes you will lose healthy posture and potentially do damage. Therefore, we want to choose appropriate exercises for the purpose.

Benefits of Extreme Isometric Strength Training

Reduces injury rates through improved tendon properties (source)
Increased skeletal muscle activation (source)
Increased joint stability (source)
Lower blood pressure (source)
Increased pain threshold and pain relief from injuries (source)
Improves movement efficiency by reducing muscle compensation patterns (source)

Program for Extreme Isometric Strength Training (25 mins)

These are the familiar bodyweight exercises you know, but just done as a static hold. For each exercise, you should find the bottom part of the motion and stay there with arms/legs at a 90 degree angle. WHEN you fail, you just shake it off and go back to the same position. Even if that happens every 10 seconds, just stick to it. Embrace the burn!

Sets: 1 round circuit, short rest in between.

You just do one “rep” for each exercise, it just takes 5 minutes for one rep.

#1: Iso Lunge x 5mins (left)

Get into the lunge position at the bottom position where your front leg and thigh are at a 90 degree angle.

Easier: Hold on to a chair to stabilize. Rest hands against your front knee. Lower back knee on the ground.

#2: Iso Lunge x 5mins (right)

Get into the lunge position at the bottom position where your front leg and thigh are at a 90 degree angle.

Easier: Hold on to a chair to stabilize. Rest hands against your front knee. Lower back knee on the ground.

#3: Iso Pushup x 5mins

Get into the pushup position at the bottom position where your upper arm and lower arm are at a 90 degree angle.

Easier: Knees on the ground. Even belly on the ground is fine, just engage and squeeze your chest to resist gravity.

#4: Iso Pull x 5mins

Back muscles are harder to train with just bodyweight, so ideally try to find a bar to hang from, even a hand rail can work. If not, you can grab the end of a table with your body underneath. Just make sure it’s stable for your weight! Since this is a static hold, you could even just put a towel over a strong door, or even just pull upwards by standing on a towel while holding on to the ends.

Get into a pull position, again roughly arms at a 90% angle.

Easier: Adjust the angle or partially rest your weight on the floor to decrease the pulling weight.

Super Slow Strength Training

The idea here is to maximize time-under-tension, i.e. how much strain you are putting on the muscle. This is a fatigue seeking form of training, so it makes sense to do it just once a week. You really won’t want to do it more often, anyway!

Benefits of Super Slow Strength Training

Increased insulin sensitivity (source)
Increased skeletal muscle hypertrophy (source)
Maximum motor unit recruitment from constant tension (source)
Improved cardiovascular efficiency (source)
Slow movement patterns allow safe training to failure (source)

Program for Super Slow Strength Training (15 mins)

Since the focus is on slow movement, bodyweight exercises work very well.

Sets: 1 round circuit, no rest in between.

You will only do a single set for each exercise, moving the weights very slowly back and forth in a continuous motion. You will keep moving until you simply cannot move against the resistance any longer. Shaking will ensue. Usually that would be around 5-10 reps, ideally less than 2 minutes. IF you feel like you can keep going, try a harder variation!

Tempo: 10s up, 10s down, no lockup until can’t move!

#1: Slow Lunge (right) x max reps

Regular lunge exercise, but just super slow until you just can’t move.

Easier: Try a regular air squat.

Harder: Set your back foot on a chair. Backpack full of books. Pistol squat if you dare!

#2: Slow Lunge (left) x max reps

Regular lunge exercise, but just super slow until you just can’t move.

Easier: Try a regular air squat.

Harder: Set your back foot on a chair. Backpack full of books. Pistol squat if you dare!

#3: Slow Pushup x max reps

Regular pushup exercise, but just super slow until you just can’t move.

Easier: Knees on the ground.

Harder: Narrow pushup. Diamond pushup. Single hand.

#4: Slow Pull x max reps

Pull as many reps as you can, but just super slow until you just can’t move.

Easier: Adjust the bar angle or partially rest your weight on the floor to decrease the pulling weight.

Tips for Strength Training

Here’s a few things to keep in mind as you start on your strength training program.

Progressive overload: How to get stronger over time

To keep on growing you have to vary the amount and types of stress you are applying for your muscles. Progressive overloading is necessary for maximal muscle fiber recruitment and size increases, which means that alterations in weight training program design for both strength and muscle hypertrophy will be most beneficial for maximizing strength and muscle over time. So essentially don’t do the same movements with the same rep schemes over and over again. [study link]

Train to failure: How much weight is enough

Train to momentary muscular failure in order to recruit all possible muscle fibers. Studies have found little difference in muscle hypertrophy in lifting heavy weights (90% of max possible, or 90%RM), or lighter weights (30%RM), so long as the lift is done to failure. However, heavier weights (80%RM) appear to increase bone mineral density more. [study link]

Favor compound movements: What exercises are best for strength

Compound exercises (such as the deadlift, squat and Olympic weightlifting) recruit multiple muscle groups while isolation exercises (like a bicep curl) concentrate on a single muscle group. Compound movements increase testosterone and growth hormone more than isolation exercises. [study link 1, study link 2]