In any of your workout routines, you need to make strengthening exercises also a part, as strengthening exercises help in making your bones strong and healthy. For acquiring mass and to get your muscles toned up, strengthening exercise is a very great tool and you can reap beneficial results depending upon your interests and performing them.
For example, you can get your muscles well sculpted and toned up if you can use lesser weights for a longer period of time and where as if you exercise with heavier weights with fewer repetitions you can get greater muscle mass. It is an unwritten code that you should do a light stretching exercise before any of your strenuous workouts so as to make your muscles relaxed and to make them ready for the intended heavier workouts.
Similarly, if you are planning to do strengthening exercise, you should initially do some stretching exercise and if need be you can also combine a viable proportion of these two exercise forms and make them as your daily routine. It is also true that many people are making stretching exercises as their prelude and post-workout habit so as to get the tensed muscles relaxed sufficiently.
Know the Right Mix of Stretching and Strengthening Exercise
You may be aware that any strenuous exercise forms such as workouts or strengthening exercises need to be done only after you stretch your muscles sufficiently and in turn to do the stretching exercise you need to get your muscles warmed up to gain maximum out of the stretching exercise. Doing simple aerobic exercises for 10 to 15 minutes can be sufficient for getting your muscles warmed up and you will be ready to do your stretching exercise there after.
There are also few other methods such as jogging, recumbent bike, walking on a treadmill or jumping rope that can sufficiently help you to warm up your muscles. As far as possible you should accord importance while doing your stretching exercise and see that you get all your muscles toned up for an overall health and in the absence of sufficient time you can at least get your target muscles toned up sufficiently. You can get more information on these stretching and strengthening exercises from various DVDs and books brought out specially for the purpose and you can also engage a personal trainer to get your exercise moves fine tuned for better results.
Choose an Appropriate Strengthening Exercise for your Post Stretching Need
Strengthening exercises are more sophisticated than any other similar forms of exercises, and hence you need to do it with care and caution. While doing strengthening exercise you should never be overenthusiastic to get or see results in a short time, as this can lead to muscle injuries and other related complications.
It is a better practice to start with lighter weights with more repetitions and as you gain expertise or when your muscles are ready to cope with more weights then you can switch over to heavier weights, but with lesser repetitions. And this way you can see your muscles gaining mass and strength over a period of time. The key in any strengthening exercise is that you should keep increasing the difficulty level very reasonably and should never try to over do any of the prescribed exercise forms.
After your strengthening exercises your muscles will get tense and you need to relax them by resorting to few stretching exercises and you can make these stretching exercise as your routine before and after you regular strengthening exercises and you can see your health getting improved with more flexibility and favourable muscle tone.
[tags]Strengthening Exercise, Personal Trainer, Warming Up, Overhead Stretch[/tags]