Understanding Strength

Muscular strength is the maximum amount of force a muscle or muscle group can develop during a single contraction. Muscular endurance is the number of repeated contractions against a resistance without fatigue, or the length of time a contraction can be held without fatigue. Progressive resistance training is the best way to increase strength.

Muscle is an active tissue that requires high energy for maintenance and rebuilding processes. How many of you know that even when we sleep, our skeletal muscles use more than 25% of our total calorie use.

It has been proven that non training adults after the age of 25 years lose muscle mass at the rate of about ½ kg every year. This also results in a drop of 5% in the metabolic rate every decade of life. Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR) is the ability of the body to use energy at rest. The Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR) of a person depends on his/her mind state and muscle mass. Lesser the muscle mass, lesser is the BMR. Most importantly, when the BMR decreases, the body does not burn enough calories at rest. This results in storage of excess fat in the body. This excess fat in turn adds on to the extra load the joints have to carry; the organs also have to work harder to cope with this load.

One of my favorite analogies is that of the Ferrari car and an old Fiat car. Just on ignition; even if the cars are not moving, the Ferrari will burn more fuel. Why? It is because the Ferrari has more engine power than the old Fiat. Similarly, the muscles are the engines of the body.

Although our metabolism eventually slows down with age, this and other degenerative processes can be drastically delayed through regular strength-training. The imbalances occur just because the modern man chooses to live in the lap of inactivity.