Building strength involves working your muscles against some degree of resistance, such as lifting a weight. But it isn’t just sufficient to lift a weight only once, instead, you need to work the muscles to their maximum capacity, and this does mean performing each movement several times, or in other words, repetitions. This is known as challenging the muscles. By raising the weight or the number of repetition, you actually increase the challenge.

Weight lifting isn’t the only form of resistance training. In fact, every time you sit down or stand up, you work by carrying your body weight against gravity. Other examples include tensile resistance, such as the pull you feel walking in an ocean or in a deep mud.

Water offers considerable resistance and swimming is an ideal form of strength exercise as well as improving stamina.

Although muscles grow larger in response to strength training, it doesn’t mean that you will gain a body builder’s physique, which in fact takes many hours of specialized training and dedicated effort. You will however, be helping yourself to a fitter, stronger body with firmer muscles and less body fat.

Keep your body ready for action and also prepared for strenuous or weighty tasks by regularly exerting your muscles. Strength and endurance training not only tones and conditions your muscles, but it also improves your fitness level.

Strength is the ability to lift, lower, push or carry an object of such mass, weight or resistance that the effort involved can only be sustained for a short time. For example, you need muscular strength to lift a heavy suitcase into the boot of a car, or to unscrew the tight lid of a jar or to push a piano.

Endurance, on the other hand, can be considered as the ability to sustain a level of activity for extended periods, such as carrying heavy shopping home or digging the garden. Improving muscular strength and endurance will provide important benefits to both your health and your quality of life.

On average, men and women are at their strongest when at the age of 30. After that, muscle mass and strength in the body, tend to goes into a steady decline unless people do something about it and make strength exercises an important part of their lives.

Regular resistance exercises can reduce and even reverse the steady decline in strength with age; no matter how old or unfit you are when you start.

As per the scientists at John Hopkins University at United States of America, an older adult who has been doing strength exercises for more than 15 years are as strong as or stronger than 20 years old guy who has been inactive. Studies conducted at a nursing home showed that even 80 and 90 years olds could double their leg muscle strength and improve daily activity levels by 35 percent after just 10 weeks of strength exercises. Just as aerobic exercises boost the heart and lungs, so strength exercises build up muscles. Unless muscle is regularly used, its tone diminishes and it becomes weaker. Unfit muscles always tire easily, and are prone to injury and limit the amount of activity your body can take. A Small amount of thought and effort can save your muscles.