Strength Training: Which Is Right For You?

Types of Strength Training

There are many different types of strength training available out there, so it can be confusing to know which one is right for you to achieve your goals – which, by the way, you want to be clear and quantifiable. It's not enough to have a vague idea of wanting to gain more muscles or to lose weight – you’ll want to have a specific goal, such as bench pressing 200 pounds, or losing 10 pounds by Christmas (so, you know, you’ll have space for all that holiday food).

(Average Gunsmith reader after losing 10 lbs)

Lucky for you, today we’ll talk about some of the more popular ones so you’ll have a better idea of what type of strength training you’ll want to take on.

Total Body Training

If you’re new to strength training, total body training is a great way to start. You’ll use lighter weights in a variety of different motions to work out the entire body.

This way, you’ll get to improve your body strength as a whole, and discover which areas you are weak in so you can focus on them later on.

There are a number of benefits to Total Body Training.  Often called a 'whole-body workout', total body training usually refers to working all of the major muscle groups in a single session.  Using this strategy can help save time, stimulate more muscle and give you more time for training.

By doing Total Body Training, you only need to work out approximately 3 days a week because you're working your entire body during each session.  This obviously saves you time by being in the gym less, but it also means that your body has much more down time to recover from the previous workout.

Some total body workouts are running, cycling, pushups, lunges, and squats.

Isolation Training

The classic muscular isolation training can be good for beginners and advanced lifters alike.

Unlike other strength training programs in this list, isolation training, as you’ve probably already guessed, only targets one or two muscle groups in a day and makes use of only one joint. Some examples of isolation exercises are concentration curls, leg extensions, and triceps kickbacks.

There are plenty of benefits to isolation training, such as the ability to focus on form and to work a specific muscle group in a single session.  If you build your workout routine around Isolation Training, be prepared to spend 5 days a week in the gym.  You'll also want to be sure to get plenty of rest, as each of those 5 days will be a pretty intense workout.

This type of training is great if you’re looking to focus on developing specific areas such as your arms and booty. If you’ve already followed a total body training program, you can come up with a muscular isolation training program that targets the weaker areas you’ve discovered.

Dynamic Training

Think total body training, but faster. Dynamic exercises integrate a lot of large cardiovascular components as well as excellent strength training. Box jumps, rope pulls, and also lighter weightlifting movements such as squats.

If you’re looking to drop weight quickly, this is the training program you’ll want to look into.

Powerlifting Training

This type of strength training focuses on incorporating more muscle in larger movements. Types of exercises that fall under powerlifting are squats, deadlifts, and bench press – and it’s in fact these three that are used in most powerlifting competitions around the world.

This is an advanced method of strength training which involves a lot of heavy weights, and as such, is high risk. However, if you want to have large shoulders, arms, and legs, this is the training program for you.

Whatever your goals, there is a strength training program out there that’s just right for you. And you don’t need to take on only one – you can do different types of strength training as your fitness level moves up.

For the best results, and to help you avoid injury when performing any of these exercises, head on over to our shop and check out our weightlifting belts, sleeves and wraps for wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles, as well as other helpful (dare we say, essential) gear!