If your exercise goal is to define and build muscles, to give shape and tone to a flabby body, resistance training can produce visible results in a relatively short time, Such program allows you to concentrate on problem areas and need to take no more than a few minutes a day.
How Muscles Work.
To do its work, a muscle contracts. There are three kinds of contractions:
* Concentric in which the muscles shortens, as in lifting a weight against gravity;
* Eccentric in which the muscle is lengthened, as when the external resistance overcomes the muscle and it lowers the weight and;
* Isometric contraction, in which there is no change in the length of the muscle because the object is immovable.
There are three main methods of building muscle strength and endurance:
* Progressive resistance
* Isometrics
* Isokinetics
Progressive Resistance
Through similar to weight lifting, a competitive sport, progressive resistance develops muscular strength and endurance by progressively increasing the overload so that the muscle is forced through a series of compensatory adaptations. For strength and size of muscle you lift progressively greater weights with fewer repetitions. For endurance and definition of muscle you lift a lighter weight (say, 5 or 10 pounds) with more repetitions. If done rapidly enough, this method can even be used as a fitness exercise. A muscle trained by lifting weights is limited to the specific training movement, and little of the developed strength is transferable to other kinds of movements.
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JANUARY 14
