Are you looking to improve your mood? Do you want to control or lose weight? Do you want to get stronger while developing healthy bones and tissues?

If your answer is YES, you need to start weight lifting.

Weight lifting has plenty of health benefits and is super easy to fit into your routine. Unsure of where to start? Whether you’re a beginning weight lifter or an enthusiast, here are three of the best exercise tips for strength training.

Form Over Weight

The right form is essential for reaching your fitness goals and staying safe.

Every time you perform an exercise you’re targeting a specific muscle group. When your body bends or loses its form, this results in the wrong muscles getting worked. Adding weight when your body is in the wrong position can cause injury to joints and tendons.

How do you ensure proper form?

Practicing each exercise before adding weights is a great way to keep form. If you have trouble keeping form when the weights are added, you may need to lower the weight or number of reps. Lastly, pain or strain in the wrong muscles can be helpful indicators that your form is off.

If you’re worried about improper form, consider reaching out to a personal trainer.

Breathing is just as important as your form. Weight lifting is considered an anaerobic exercise, which means short and intense bursts of exertion. Proper breathing allows you to generate greater force to support the strain on your muscles.

However, when you breathe incorrectly your blood pressure rises and risks potential injury. Fighting the instinct to hold your breath can help prevent fatigue, dizziness, and fainting.

I’d recommend exhaling as you lift the weight and inhaling while lowering weight.

Progressive Overload Exercise Tips

If you’re a weight lifter, your goal is to build muscle and gain strength. This won’t happen if you stick to the same routine day after day. Instead, you have to practice progressive overload.

Progressive overload means increasing the demand on your muscles over time.

Here’s what that might look like:

• Increasing resistance/weight
• Increasing reps
• Increasing sets
• Increasing frequency
• Decreasing rest time

Implementation of these strategies may differ according to your goals. If you want to get stronger, you need to determine how to lift more weight. If your goal is muscular endurance, it may be more helpful to increase reps, sets, or decrease rest time.

Progressive overload doesn’t mean applying all of these weight lifting tips at once or applying them every time you walk into the gym. But, if you aren’t intensifying your workout in some shape or form, you won’t see results.

Routine & Recovery

The last of the weight lifting safety tips is sticking to a routine and allowing for appropriate recovery time. The best routine is one you’ll be consistent with, and one that targets every muscle group.

I’d recommend a full-body routine 2 to 3 days a week, or a split upper and lower body routine 4 days a week.

When building your training routine, you MUST implement rest days. Rest days allow your fatigued muscles to recover. Additionally, it protects them from injury and prepares them for your next workout.

Take It to the Gym

The best workout practices are ones that yield results and prioritize safety. When constructing your gym routine, strike a balance between training and rest days. Then, implement these exercise tips for muscle growth.

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