Posts Tagged ‘4 Principles of Resistance Training’
There are 4 principles of resistance training in which you can build muscle mass. I’ll briefly attempt to explain them here, today. The 4 principles are; progression, regularity, overload and specificity.
Progression, as you can imagine is, continually placing more demands on the muscles and progressively increase the demands overtime, to result in long term gains. If you don’t constantly challenge the body (muscles) they will no longer have a reason to adapt or change. You’ll see faster progression in beginners, than you will with novice resistance trainers. A natural and helpful way to increase the progression, is to increase weight by 5-10% and decrease repetitions. You can also increase weights and increase repetitions, or even add another exercise for that body part.
The second principle is Regularity. Sure it makes sense if you don’t consistently train your muscles you won’t see and muscle gains. The old adage, “Use it or Lose it” is consistent with this principle. Training adaptations cannot be stored. You’ll only see long term muscle strength and performance if training is done on a regular basis.
Principle Overload is the 3rd principle in resistance training. Place greater demands on the muscle, beyond the level which it is normally stressed! Change the exercise intensity, duration and frequency for changes to take place. You can see a further explanation of this on my web page, www.fitnessfromthepro.com!
Finally, the 4th principle is SAID-Specific Adaptations to Impose Demands. That is every muscle should be trained to make specific gains in strength and endurance.
When you are starting a program to build muscle mass, please keep these 4 principles in mind so you can see the gains you seek with the proper demands placed on the muscles!