Weight Lifting 101

by: Kevin Valluzzi

Why Weight Lifting?

What's the one thing that you can do to lose weight, re-shape your body, improve muscle tone, become stronger, fight off osteoporosis, lower blood pressure, etc.? Weight Lifting! Or as it's also called, Strength Training! For the rest of this book I will refer to the art of weight lifting as strength training. One of the reasons a lot of people don't lift weights is because they are intimidated by the word weight lifting. It amazes me to see how many people avoid lifting weights for one reason or another. Let me make sure you are clear of one very important fact. Lifting weights is one of the best, if not the best thing you can do for your overall health!

Let's jump right in and start off by covering exactly "what" strength training is. It's actually very simple. Strength training or weight lifting is the lifting of heavy weights and/or resistance in a prescribed manner as an exercise or in athletic competition. Notice I said weights and/or resistance. It doesn't have to necessarily be a weight plate or a dumbbell. We'll get into that more later. As simple as that definition of strength training sounds, why are you and so many other people not doing it? The answer to that is probably one of these two:

1. You're not sure what to do, or you're confused about what to do.

2. You have never realized that strength-training can and will build muscle, which in turn will help you look and feel great.

You very well could be on a strength-training program right now. Even if you are, I want you to really pay attention to what we're going to talk about for the rest of the book. I'm sure it is going to have you thinking differently about why you should be lifting weights from now on. We're going to talk about why developing a strength training program will ultimately help you lose weight, add some muscle tone, look better and feel better about yourself. We will go over some "myths" about strength training and the real facts behind them. So, whether you're new to strength training or you've been doing it for years, pay close attention.