by Wayne Clist

Created on: June 29, 2009   Last Updated: June 30, 2009

Resistance training - the science of training muscles with weights to increase both strength and muscle mass. Resistance training has pretty much followed core principles that have remained along the same lines throughout centuries of modernisation in training technique. The principle remains that strength training for muscles will incorporate increases in weight or resistance and concentric or eccentric movements in order to force muscles to cope with increasingly difficult training by forcing them to grow additional muscle cells. Whether for men or women resistance training is an excellent way to exercise.

The use of weight training or resistance training itself can be traced back to the Olympians of ancient Greece where it was recorded that a wrestler trained with a calf strapped to his back every day - perhaps the earliest form of weight training equipment but certainly testament to the adaptability of resistance training.

Resistance training can be used to train in various ways and with a different focus in order to generate different results. Less repetitions of exercise with greater weight will focus on slow twitch muscle fibres, increasing muscle mass, density and strength whilst less weight or resistance and more repetitions will focus on fast twitch muscle fibers increasing anaerobic capacity and endurance of the muscle and will therefore increase lean muscle mass and reduce localised fat.

The gymnast say, will train differently from the power lifter in that, although both rely on explosive power in their movements, the gymnast's muscles will have to work for longer periods of time and will have to rely on their anaerobic capacity and endurance more than the power lifter whose movements will be very brief but explosive. So from that one could deduce that the gymnast would have to vary their training to incorporate different rep models whilst the power lifter would remain working with the low rep, high weight model of resistance training.

The modern day strength training enthusiast has a multitude of equipment to choose from and the most well known and most easily associated with resistance training are the dumbbell and barbel. Although the most basic, despite advances in equipment, these items remain the most effective for any form of strength or resistance training, involving the use of ancillary stabilising muscles. That isn't to say that there there aren't a whole host of equally as well recommended pieces of equipment that can be used in resistance

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