Building a strength-training program

Volume 2, Number 18 | The Weekly Newspaper of Chelsea | February 1 - 7, 2008

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Healthy Now

By Greg Rothman, M.S. P.T.

If you have been following my column this year, you should be well on your way to establishing some better eating habits. Remember that I had said that it takes only three weeks for most people to develop a habit—and habits, good or bad, are hard to break—so you are now two-thirds of the way toward setting nutritional changes in stone, changes that greatly improve the way your body looks and feels.

Already, you should be noticing that you get hungry more frequently—a sign that you have boosted your metabolism. And you should feel more energetic throughout the day. You may have noticed that the mid-day “crash” that so many people feel is no longer causing you to want to put your head down on your desk at four in the afternoon.

These are very good signs, and precursors to what will follow—feeling more comfortable in your tighter clothes, noticing less fat around your midsection. Now that you are eating in a way that supports the goals of building or maintaining muscle tissue while burning stored fat, let’s explore the second piece of the puzzle that is needed to move you in the direction of optimal fitness: Strength training.

The goal of strength training—in addition to the obvious, making you stronger—is to add muscle to the body. Understand that when I refer to muscle here, I’m talking about lean tissue—this is not just for bodybuilders. It is muscle that makes you leaner.

For those of you who are interested in merely “toning”—and the majority of the people with whom I speak fall into this category—building muscle is still essential. Muscle makes you leaner. It is metabolically active tissue, it requires that you burn calories to sustain it, and it is only within your muscle cells that you can burn stored body fat. It is important to recognize this, because so many people fear “bulking up” or looking like a bodybuilder. Recognize that it requires extreme strength training, massive amounts of calories and, in most cases, anabolic steroids, for the average person to attain this look. This is not the goal of strength training in the sense that I am talking about here.

There are a couple principles that are largely overlooked by people vying for a stronger, leaner body, and they are absolutely crucial: Maximum intensity, adaptation and progressive resistance.

To add new muscle tissue, an exercise must challenge muscle right up to its capacity—this is maximum intensity. If you are doing strength-training exercises for a range of, say, eight to 12 repetitions—the best number to shoot for when adding muscle is the goal—then your muscles should reach the point of fatigue within this range. In other words, you should choose a weight that is heavy enough that you can do, say, 12 reps but not 13, with good form.

By the time you get back to the gym for your next workout, adaptation will have occurred: The weight you lifted for 12 reps last time will no longer give your body the stimulus it needs to grow new tissue, and you’ll we need to provide new stimulus if you’re to continue to make improvements.

That brings us to progressive resistance: In each subsequent workout, you’ll need to lift a little bit more weight in order to continue to improve. Keeping the weight the same will result perhaps in maintaining you where you are, but will not allow for continued progress.

If you truly challenge muscle to its maximum intensity in this way and continue to progress the resistance, you will notice big, positive changes very rapidly. You will notice within a couple weeks that you are much stronger than you were before. Your clothes will start fitting better in the waist, as new muscle tissue requires more calories (and stored fat) to be burned.

You’ll also find that somewhere between four and eight weeks into your exercise program, you’ll reach a plateau and can no longer increase the resistance during workouts. This is expected; if we could continue to get stronger indefinitely in this fashion, there would be people out there lifting garbage trucks. Since all effective training programs work in phases (a topic for another column), when you reach a plateau, it’s time to change your exercise program, to focus on endurance or power or balance.

It is worth noting here that I’ve never met anyone who could effectively keep track of every set, repetition and weight in their exercise program without writing it down. This is essential. Eliminate the guess work and keep track of what you are doing so you are able to effectively progress your program. Bring paper and pen to the gym with you every time, or invest in a workout journal.

The above principles are all that are needed to help you get stronger, add lean muscle and, hence, boost your metabolism and burn fat. For specific exercises, consult one of the many books with great workout programs, or enlist the help of a fitness professional.

Next week, we’ll turn our attention to cardiovascular training, the third (and last) piece of the exercise puzzle—or “synergy”—that forms the core of a sound workout regimen and long-lasting health.

Greg Rothman, M.S. P.T., is the owner of emPower Fitness Studios (emPowerFitnessNYC.com). He received his masters degree in physical therapy from Columbia University and has 15 years’ experience in the rehabilitation and fitness fields, most recently as the personal training manager and top-level trainer for Equinox Fitness Clubs in New York City. SEND YOUR QUESTIONS about nutrition, fitness and sports injuries/rehabilitation to Greg at emPowerFitness@aol.com.