Lift Weights to Gain Strength

Program Description
Being strong rocks. You can move furniture by yourself, open tight jar lids with ease and of course, go farther and faster on the athletic field. As you design a weightlifting program either by yourself or with the help of a trainer, carefully consider what your strength goals are. For instance, a marathon runner, a shot putter and grandma can all benefit greatly from strength conditioning training, but their goals and therefore their routines will look vastly different.

Actions
1. Make sure sure the program you choose fits your overall strength and conditioning goals.

2. If you’re an athlete who requires explosive strength (a shot putter, sprinter, football player, martial artist), you’ll want to do powerful, explosive exercises, including powerlifting movements and plyometrics.

3. For general, non-sport-specific strength, broaden your palette of exercises to include more controlled and targeted movements: bicep curls, leg curls and leg extensions, cable exercises and so on.

4. If muscular “limit strength” is the goal, keep your repetitions in the 2 to 6 reps range and the number of sets relatively low.

5. For pitchers and other “ballistic” athletes, as well as distance runners, ligament and tendon strength are more important than brute strength. In that case, they should train in the 50 reps and above range.