What are the types of muscle strength – find out here

Physical activity is one of the fundamental requirements to achieve healthy lifestyle habits, along with adequate nutrition. Both factors help reduce and prevent weight alterations, such as being overweight or obesity, very common problems in today”s society, since there is a clear tendency to sedentary lifestyle and poor nutritional habits. It is very important to combat these disorders, as they can cause other pathologies such as cardiovascular diseases or diabetes.

One of the ways to be physically active on a regular basis that has gained the most followers in recent years has been exercising in the gym. There are different types of training, depending on the objectives to be achieved, but what many people are unaware of is that both the objectives and the training sessions are closely related to the types of muscle strength that exist and that condition the capabilities of the person in the time of exercise.

What is muscle strength

When we start training in the gym, the first thing we set ourselves is the goals we pursue. In some cases, it is the gain of muscle mass, in others the toning and definition. Also, many people want to combine both goals, first with the increase of muscle and then with the reduction of body fat. In all cases there is a basic component that causes us to achieve our goals when we exercise: strength.

An easy and understandable definition of force can be the ability of each muscle that makes up our body to produce a tension that acts against resistance. This concept is totally generic and refers to all types of strength, but it can be said that there are three more specific types of strength that are closely related to the way we exercise. If we have developed one of these types more, it will be easier for us to do a certain type of physical activity, but if we want to improve in one in which we do not have as much practice, we can also work on it by developing the type of strength that is related to it.

Pure force or maximum force

Logically, the more strength we have, the more weight we will lift and the greater the capacity to develop muscle mass we will have. We can generate more force with training, and if our main objective is to gain strength and then be able to increase muscle, it is best to increase pure or maximum force.

To be understood in a simple way, pure force is that which we are capable of producing when we perform a single repetition of an exercise. That is, we are going to use practically 100% of our strength to do one repetition with the maximum possible weight. By training in this way, you will gain more strength that you can then use in subsequent training sessions to achieve the rest of your goals. Keep in mind that when training maximum strength, you cannot count on the help of a partner to perform the only repetition that you must do. You can do three or four sets of one rep, depending on muscle exhaustion.

Explosive force

This type of force is also called power. It is defined as the speed at which our muscles can move a weight. With this type of force, what we gain is explosiveness and speed in movement, as well as muscle mass.

If you want to work on these goals, your training has to be based on three or four sets of maximum 6 repetitions. You should also choose a weight that is between your 70% and 80% strength, so that you arrive tired at the last repetition. It is one of the workouts chosen to develop muscle mass and to gain muscle power, since it is usually quite effective in both upper and lower body.

Resistance force

The last type of force refers to the amount of time that the force can be acting, that is, the amount of time that a muscle can be generating that tension to act against a resistance. This type of force is the one that corresponds to toning workouts, since it involves performing more repetitions with lower weights.

To work on endurance strength, do four sets of twelve repetitions with weights that correspond to 60% of your strength. In this way you will be strengthening and toning the muscle and eliminating fat.

Now that you know what the types of muscle strength are, you may be interested in this other article on How to do strength training.