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Performing Muscular Strength Exercises - Weight Training for Increased Muscular Strength

By David Kamau

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 04Nov2010 Word count: 580 Viewed: 126 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

The world of weight lifting is more expansive than most people assume. However, most people perceive weight lifting from the perspective of bodybuilding. Now, there is nothing wrong with this if you are actually looking for a bodybuilding physique. But, what if you are looking to increase and enhance your physical strength?

If this is your goal, you will probably want to avoid a bodybuilding workout. Bodybuilding workouts center on developing a certain look as opposed to enhancing strength. In fact, bodybuilders are commonly referred to as "pretty boys on the beach" while weight lifters are referred to as "strong boys on the beach" (substitute the gender where appropriate).

This is not to say that bodybuilders and those seeking excellence in physical appearance should stay away from muscular strength exercises. You could integrate them into you bodybuilding routine as they will help enhance your workouts and intensity by allowing you to use heavier weights and overcome weight training plateaus.

Those wanting to enhance strength will need to employ muscular strength exercises. Are these exercises complicated? Actually, they are fairly simple to perform and do not even require a significant time commitment to achieve results from.

Many of the muscular strength exercises you perform are the exact same exercises that would be found in a bodybuilding workout. However, the approach to the exercises and the performance of the exercises will be different. Again, this is because the goal here is to enhance strength and reduce the effort needed to perform physical tasks. So, let's take a clear look at exactly how this is to be done.

At the core of all muscular strength exercises is heavy weights and low reps. This is because you want to overload the muscle with near maximum weight and lift for a few short reps which will lead to quick failure. Failure refers to the muscle's inability to continue with an exercise. When this occurs, the muscle will seek to grow larger during the rest stage to handle the amount of weight it failed to lift. In short, training to failure leads to the muscle seeking to grow stronger.

More often than not, you will want to work the major compound exercises such as the bench press, the military press, the dead lift, and the squat since these are the most common strength building exercises. Usually, lifting 60% to 80% of your maximum weight potential for 6 -8 reps is recommended. Keep in mind, however, that you should definitely have a workout partner with you when performing these lifts since they can lead to an injury if you lose control of the heavy weight. Dead lifts, in particular, can cause a back injury if not performed properly. So, never risk safety when performing muscular strength exercises.

Does this mean you never perform isolation exercises when looking to increase strength? Honestly, you can certainly isolate specific muscles and perform exercises that target these muscles specifically. Bicep curls, calf raises, and leg extensions would fall under the category of these types of exercises. However, the amount of weight you lift with an isolation exercise will be certainly less than what you can perform with compound exercises. You simply will have fewer muscles employed so the amount of weight you lift will have to be adjusted.

Ultimately, muscular strength exercises can deliver excellent results in terms of the ability to properly enhance human strength. They are not tough to perform and anyone can do them. So why not give them a try?

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