Building body strength is something that happens over time. It’s not something that’s easily done, especially if you’re starting from scratch. Building muscle and creating that strength in your body takes dedication to your workouts.
If you’re looking to build body strength, consider your reasoning for it. Are you looking to support your bones as you get older or are you looking to build more muscle to look more toned? There are many reasons why building body strength becomes a priority in someone’s workout.
With that being said, here are several tips to build body strength in 2023 if you’re interested in focusing on this for your own fitness journey.
Make sure to warm up and cool down properly
First and foremost, make sure you’re warming up and cooling down properly. This is something that most people skip, which is only going to cause damage to your body and muscles as a result.
By not warming up, you’re not limbering up your body for the flexibility it needs to take on the weights. That’s going to cause some unnecessary strain initially and you’re more than likely to pull something as a result of not warming up.
While some people warm up, some will forget to warm down – which is just as important. Warming down helps to stretch the muscles effectively so that you reduce the amount of soreness you feel in the muscles themselves.
To help contribute to a positive build-up of body strength, make sure you’re warming up and cooling down properly.
Focus on form rather than quantity of reps
One of the most important aspects to take away from building body strength is to focus on form. That’s something that’s mentioned by most experts within the fitness industry and the first thing you should focus on doing when trying to build muscle or exercise in general.
Getting the positioning of the weights right, to the positioning of your body, and being sure to do the entire rep rather than cutting it short at the end is key. That way, your body and more importantly, the muscles, are going to experience the full benefit of the workout itself.
If you’re focusing on just the quantity of reps and getting as many reps out as possible, chances are, you’re doing it wrong. Poor form can put unnecessary strain on some muscles or parts of the body that can lead to injury.
Build up your weight
As you start to work on building your body’s strength, it’s important to build up weight slowly but surely. You don’t want to skip from lifting 3kg to 7kg in the space of the week. Unless you’re working out constantly, every day, then building up the weight this fast is only going to cause muscle exhaustion and in most cases, injury.
Building up your weight takes time. You might find that you’re working with 5kg weights for one month and then moving up 1-2kg in the next month. Everyone is different, which means what you might be able to build up from, is different to another person.
By building up weight slowly, you’re still challenging your muscles but in a healthy and supportive way. When the weight feels too light to rep, then that’s when you should move up.
Be sure to breathe during your workouts
Breathing – it’s something that should be self-explanatory right? Well, the natural thing for people to do when it comes to lifting weights is to tense and hold their breath. Actually trying to breathe when lifting is a lot harder than it sounds.
However, by breathing in and out during your workouts, helps ensure all of the oxygen is helping pump the blood to the muscles and to reduce pain felt after the workout. Be sure to exhale as your body pushes against the resistance.
Try to vary your workouts from core to upper body focus
Varying your workouts is a great way to ensure that you build body strength with ease. That means going from core to upper body strength, to lower body strength throughout the week.
Alongside weighted workouts, you should also be doing cardio. All of the variations you provide in your workouts are going to contribute positively to building that all-important muscle.
Sure, there are going to be workouts that you don’t particularly like and might want to skip at times. However, that’s only going to set you back. There are core strength benefits for example that core workouts are useful in doing to build general body muscle and strength. So that’s no one to be skipped!
Stick to a routine
A routine is important because it not only provides consistency in your workouts and building muscle, but it also gives you a lot of motivation. When it comes to exercising, making it a habit is a lot harder than other habits you might naturally pick up without much fuss.
That’s why it’s important to try and stick to a routine as best as you can. Whether you’re doing one or two workouts per week, to building that up to multiple workouts every week, it’s essential that you’re sticking to a routine.
Hold yourself accountable to the time you’re dedicating to your workouts and only do so much each week that won’t lead you to making excuses and dropping out of a workout or two.
Give your muscles some time off
Finally, anyone who is building muscle, whether they’re at the start of their journey or they are two years into it, needs time off from exercise. These rest days are important to recover physically and mentally. Your muscles deserve and need some time off so that you’re not overexerting them and causing yourself unnecessary damage.
Make sure that you take some rest days in between your workouts every week. That way, you’ll be able to bounce back on your workout days with full energy and strength capacity.
Building body strength is something that’s highly important, so with that being said, use these tips to maximize your efforts to build it up in 2023.
