Bri­an Chin Le­ung

For many years in Trinidad and To­ba­go, it was an ac­cept­ed fact that women would go to the gym to on­ly par­tic­i­pate in aer­o­bic dance class­es, while the weight train­ing area in the gym would re­main a man's do­main.How­ev­er, with­in the past 20 years that mind­set has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly, and many women can now be seen in the weight area pump­ing iron and grunt­ing just as loud as the men.

The main rea­son for this is that women have wise­ly re­alised they need more than aer­o­bic-type ex­er­cis­es to give them that sexy shape, which is ca­pa­ble of launch­ing 1,000 ships and turn­ing just as many male heads; when that body is poured in­to a pair of tight-fit­ting jeans. Women have re­alised they need iron! I am talk­ing bar­bells, dumb­bells, ket­tle­bells, etc.If you have to pick a sin­gle type of train­ing that could dra­mat­i­cal­ly change your body shape, in a short space of time, it would be re­sis­tance train­ing. This type of train­ing can come in many forms; free weights; ma­chines; re­sis­tance bands, etc.

Types of re­sis­tance train­ing

Re­sis­tance train­ing can be iso­ton­ic, iso­ki­net­ic or iso­met­ric.

• Iso­ton­ic:?In this type of train­ing, the mus­cle con­tracts and short­ens, giv­ing move­ment.

A good ex­am­ple of iso­ton­ic train­ing is free weight train­ing.

• Iso­ki­net­ic:?This is per­formed us­ing spe­cialised equip­ment that pro­vides vari­able re­sis­tance to a move­ment, so no mat­ter how much ef­fort is ex­ert­ed, the move­ment takes place at a con­stant speed.

• Iso­met­ric:?In this type of train­ing the joint an­gle and mus­cle length do not change dur­ing con­trac­tion. This method was pop­u­lar dur­ing the 1950's Charles At­las era.

Ben­e­fits of re­sis­tance train­ing

In ad­di­tion to dra­mat­i­cal­ly chang­ing your body shape, the ben­e­fits of re­sis­tance train­ing in­clude:

• In­creased meta­bol­ic rate: Re­sis­tance train­ing in­creas­es your meta­bol­ic rate by in­creas­ing the calo­ries you burn on a dai­ly ba­sis.

• In­creased bone den­si­ty:?Re­sis­tance train­ing pre­vents and fights bone den­si­ty.

• In­creased lean mus­cle mass:?Some women de­vel­op a pho­bia about lift­ing weights be­cause they feel it is go­ing to make them bulky and mas­cu­line. Noth­ing could be fur­ther than the truth! Women just do not have enough testos­terone for that to oc­cur. What will hap­pen is that you will de­vel­op lean mus­cle mass, which will give you a de­fined look, as op­posed to a "fat girl" look.

• Age­ing grace­ful­ly:?Af­ter the age of 30, if you are in­ac­tive, you can lose as much as a pound of mus­cle per year. This is bad news be­cause it is mus­cle that gives you those sexy curves.

What do you think a round, firm butt is? It is pure unadul­ter­at­ed mus­cle oth­er­wise known as the glu­teus max­imus or "glutes." Re­sis­tance train­ing helps you to pre­serve pre­cious mus­cle mass as you age.

Best form of re­sis­tance train­ing

As I stat­ed above, there are many forms of re­sis­tance train­ing, but when it comes to train­ing clients, I am par­tic­u­lar­ly bi­ased to­wards free weights. It (free weights) has been time-test­ed and the re­sults are there for every­one to see.I par­tic­u­lar­ly favour com­pound move­ments like the free squat, clean and press, dead lift, bench press, etc, be­cause of the mul­ti­ple mus­cle groups need­ed to en­gage these types of move­mentsIf you are a woman or man, do your car­dio, but add re­sis­tance train­ing to your pro­gramme.

Keep train­ing.

• Bri­an Chin Le­ung is a cer­ti­fied

per­son­al train­er