Types of lifting exercises vary from general to highly specific.You can lift with barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells or odd implements including sandbags and barrels. The type of lifting you perform must directly focus on your goals. If you wish to simply gain muscle and burn some fat, recreational weight training should meet your needs. Strength training requires you to specifically focus on improving your performance in various lifts. Whatever your goals, consult a physician before beginning any exercise program.
Recreational Lifting
If your goal is to gain lean muscle mass and burn body fat, you do not need a highly focused program. While you get the best results lifting weight that challenges you, the need to strain to hit record lifts in the gym is not necessary. Your training will generally be based around barbells and dumbbells, but body-weight exercises and kettlebell lifting can be used to round out your training and provide variety. Any lifts that help you achieve your goals are acceptable.
Strength Training
Strength training is both general and specific. Many athletes engage in strength training to improve their performance in another sport. Football players will often squat, power clean and press heavily to improve their leg, back and shoulder strength and hit harder coming up off of the offensive or defensive line. Other athletes strength-train to improve their vertical jump -- football wide receivers and track and field athletes, for example. This is common, because there is a direct correlation between the strength of your squat and your vertical jump, according to a 2004 study published in the "British Journal of Sports Medicine."
Powerlifting
Powerlifting is a very specific type of strength training and requires you to post the best possible total in the squat, bench press and deadlift. Competitions are divided into weight classes; if you out-total everyone else in your weight class, you win. Your training for this sport is focused on improving your performance on the three lifts. If an exercise does nothing to improve your strength on these lifts, it is a waste of training time and energy. Using isolation cable curls might be fine for bodybuilders, but as they contribute little to any of the three lifts, they are not part of a powerlifting-focused strength program.
Weightlifting
Weightlifting is the oldest strength sport, first included in the Olympics in the late 1800s. This sport requires you to compete in the snatch and clean and jerk, and the lifts are very technical. Despite the focus on technique, great strength is required to put large weights overhead. In addition to practicing the two lifts, the squat is focused on developing strength in your legs. Other partial versions of the exercises are practiced to remedy specific weakness in the lifts, Arthur J. Drechsler writes in "The Weightlifting Encyclopedia."
References
- "The Strongest Shall Survive: Strength Training for Football"; Bill Starr; 1999
- "British Journal of Sports Medicine"; Strong Correlation of Maximal Squat Strength with Sprint Performance and Vertical Jump Height in Elite Soccer Players; U. Wisloff, et al.; June 2004
- "Strength Training Anatomy -- Third Edition"; Frederic Delavier; 2010
- "The Weightlifting Encyclopedia: A Guide to World Class Performance"; Arthur J. Drechsler; 1998
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