Bowflex 003-3211-120108A manual Muscular strength

Muscular strength

Training your muscles to remain strong using resistance such as dumbbells, elastic tubing or your body weight.

In the past decade, we have learned that building or maintaining muscular strength is extremely important for a balanced fitness program. And it is especially important as we get older.

We have learned through a variety of studies that those individuals who just train aerobically (without strength training) do maintain their cardiovascular endurance over the years, but they generally lose lean muscle mass as they get older. However, those individuals who combine strength training and cardiovascular training can maintain their lean body mass as they get older.

What this means is that if you just do cardiovascular activity, your body will naturally lose muscle mass as you get older, and that means that you will actually get “fatter” as you age, unless you incorporate strength training. We have also learned that consistent strength training helps maintain bone and muscle mass. For women, strength training (along with cardiovascular training) may also protect against post-menopausal bone loss and osteoporosis in their later years.

Strength training is not complicated. It is recommended that you do 8–12 repetitions of 8–10 major muscle groups at least two days a week. However, you don’t have to do all these exercises at once. You can break them up into shorter workouts throughout the day. For example, you can do just upper body exercises in the morning, and your lower body exercises in the evening. Or, you can alternate strength exercises with cardiovascular exercise (often known as circuit training) by switching back and forth every couple of minutes.

The best part is you don’t need complicated equipment or fancy machines. You can do everything you need to do with a simple pair of dumbbells, or you can try Bowflex® SelectTech® dumbbells, which provide you a wide variety of weight options in a revolutionary all-in-one dumbbell. You can use elastic tubing, or simply do body weight exercises such as push-ups or lunges.

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Owner’s Manual