Long gone are the days when only body-builders did strength training. Whether you can lift 100 kg or just 1 kg, it doesn’t matter. Every single gram counts and your body knows it.
I’m not sure why I enjoy strength training so much... Probably because it makes me strong enough to punch someone. While I know that my poor cardio fitness wouldn’t help me run to save my life, I like to think that if I my life depended on my ability to hold my own body weight while hanging from a precarious ledge, I wouldn’t die... So long as I didn’t have to hang there too long!
How I Started Doing Strength Training
I started doing a bit of strength training the year we took our mountaineering course (2017). I found a couple of online videos in Boho Beautiful and Blogilates that combined yoga, pilates, cardio and strength training. Sometimes we used bodyweight, other times dumbbells.
Once we started our mountaineering course, I saw what a difference it made, especially when we went caving and I had to ascend the routes we had descended 6 hours earlier. Trust me, no matter how badly I wanted to leave that torturous cave and breathe fresh air, my willpower alone wouldn’t have been enough to get me out of there fast enough.
If you’re just starting out...
One of my favorite ways to begin doing strength training is yoga conditioning classes. They mix yoga with light weights and strength exercises. Some pilates fusion or barre (Ballet-inspired workouts) classes do the same.
If you’re getting the hang of it...
Look for strength training programs that gradually increase the weight or intensity of the exercises. I know a guy who owns a Crossfit gym and he told me that kettlebell training is one of the best ways to improve whole-body strength.
If you’re ready for the next level...
I don’t know... Bodybuilding? Olympic weightlifting? Anything that makes you look like Rocky Balboa in his prime (Rocky III or Rocky IV, a topic of much debate). I’m not sure what the female equivalent would be... Demi Moore in G.I. Jane? God, I feel old...
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