Adding Strength Training to Your Fitness Goals

In addition to running, or instead of even, it's a good plan to build your muscle and bone strength. Strength training, even just doing the basics and moving nice and slow once or twice a week will combat osteoporosis and help with your balance. If you are starting a routine and you aren't doing any running or other cardio, I recommend weights 3 times per week for 4-5 weeks, then starting to add 1-2 days a week of cardio to your entire plan. If you are already doing cardio/running a few days a week, you can add strength training as 1-2 days per week. This entry is written with the idea of being a 3 day a week plan, but you can easily change it to 1 or 2 days. Just keep in mind that you should count a week as 3-4 strength days when I discuss upping reps or numbers of exercises.  

Gear necessary to start: 

Comfy workout clothes, athletic shoes (a thicker sole is preferred for use with resistance bands), a couple of dumbbells at 5-20 lbs (you can always get creative in your house finding things like kids or dogs to lift) or a set of a few resistance bands - most sets can be bought for around $20 on Amazon something like this works well. I also prefer to have a yoga or exercise mat for some of the laying down exercises. 

Getting Started!

Pick your poison.  First, decide how you want to set up your week. I recommend starting with a very short workout 3 days per week. You can either have an arm a leg and a core focused day, or have 3 days that all work on the total body. That's my preference, but everyone is different. Pick 5 exercises for the day, I have two pages with simple exercises to pick from (or choose your own). You can get a notebook to keep track of what you did and make changes every week once you find strengths/weaknesses.

Simple Exercises Page 1

Simple Exercises Page 2

Start with just 1 set of each exercise. We want workout to honestly be 5 min or less. I give recommended starting reps in one set on my simple exercise page.

Each week, add a few more reps for each exercise, until you hit 25-30 for each exercise.

Once you reach that, add a second set. When you do this, cut the number of your set down. So if you're already doing a set of 25 squats, the next time do two sets of 15 squats each. A week or two later, up BOTH sets by 5, and do two sets of 20. 

When you get your sets back up to 25-30 again, add a third set. Again, cut number per set slightly. I don't normally like to do more than 3 sets of any one activity per workout. 

Tips to Vary It Up Once You've Established a Habit

Once you feel comfortable with doing 3 sets of each of your 5 exercises in your workout, add another exercise your workout. Add only 1 per workout day, but it can be a different exercise each day of your week. Start with maybe 3 sets of 5 on that new one. 

Make note - do the exercises  that are hard for you, this gives you a better total experience. If you have very strong arms, then why keep working on those when you ignore something else. Remember, you are only as strong as your weakest system. A lot of men tend to need more core work, whereas women are typically weaker in the arms. 

Every 4-5 weeks, take a lighter week. Keep all days down to 10-15 min by cutting reps or # of different activities. Or, only have one workout day that week. 

Making sure to have "recovery" or less intense weeks will help you lose weight and give your body breaks to rebuild itself. 

Unless you're 25 or under, I don't recommend exercising until your limbs are giving out. Also, if you're very sore for more than one day after a workout, you probably did TOO MUCH that day. Scale it back and keep it scaled back until you aren't sore, then start increasing again, but slower than last time.

Eating carbs before a strength day gives your muscles fuel to use. I still recommend eating about 40-60 min before your workout. If it's been a bit longer than than, a little fruit juice or a quick snack of fruit or maybe energy beans, etc can help at 5-10 min before. This will give you energy but should keep your stomach from rebelling too much. 

After your workout, it's good to get some protein into your stomach within an hour if possible. If not, then at least make sure your next meal does provide at least 30% of its calories from protein. You can't build or rebuild muscles without it. 

Always remember, every little bit you do helps you. What are some of your favorite types of exercises?