What exercises does strength training include?

All exercises that stimulate muscle contraction and increase muscle strength and circumference by resisting external resistance are strength training. Not only lifting irons in the gym is serious strength training.

To be honest, many people who are new to fitness have misunderstandings. They think that they have to buy a class card and be able to lift dozens of kilograms of barbells before they can get started. In fact, the home training plan I made for the retired Aunt Zhang downstairs a while ago only included tiptoe lifts and support exercises. She has been practicing table squats and other movements without equipment for two months. Before, her knees became degenerative and so painful that she had to hold on to the handrails when going up and down stairs. Now she does not feel sore after dancing in the square for two hours or climbing a mountain in the suburbs with her old sisters. This is the most down-to-earth strength training effect.

Speaking professionally, people who regularly go to the gym also have different emphasis on strength training. Friends who do powerlifting spend all day in the barbell rack, honing the details of the three major movements of squats, deadlifts and bench presses. Occasionally, if you hit a PR (personal best), you can hear the roar of force in the entire strength area.； Those who follow the bodybuilding art line pay more attention to the isolated contraction of muscles. For example, when using ropes to clamp the chest or using dumbbells to do lateral raises, the feeling of pulling the muscles in front of the mirror to exert force. Even if the weight is lighter, the target muscles will be so sore the next day after training that they cannot be lifted, and the effect will be in place.

I have argued with people on fitness forums before about whether bodyweight training counts as strength training. Some people think that without extra weight, there is no training efficiency and it cannot be considered serious strength training. But if you look at the young men who are doing street fitness, they can do one-arm pull-ups and push-ups. Their core and upper limb control capabilities are much better than many people who have been lifting weights all year round but can only use inertia to throw the weight. To put it bluntly, it is just different training directions. No one is more "orthodox" than the other.

Even if you are an office worker who doesn’t spend all your time doing exercise during your lunch break, you can hold your office chair to do more than a dozen sets of arm extensions during your lunch break, walk slowly for two minutes while carrying two large shopping bags in the supermarket to practice arm stability, or even lift a thirty or forty-pound baby to do several sets of “weight-bearing presses” when you are raising a baby. As long as you deliberately control the force exerted and provide enough resistance stimulation to the target muscles, it is essentially effective strength training.

After all, strength training is never something with a high threshold. Choosing the intensity and form that suits you is much more useful than following the trend of heavy weights or following the trend and practicing niche movements.