{"id":1193,"date":"2025-07-16T22:54:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T22:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/1193\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T22:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T22:54:07","slug":"want-to-live-a-longer-healthier-life-its-time-to-start-strength-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/1193\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to Live a Longer, Healthier Life? It’s Time to Start Strength Training"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aside from targeting the major muscle groups, Holder recommends \u201cprehab\u201d exercises (those that can prevent injury before you need rehab) on overlooked areas like the ankles and shoulders. Mobility work\u2014Holder has a 15-minute morning routine on YouTube<\/a>\u2014which ensures that your strength is functional, meaning that you can be strong and able to move optimally. (Picture the opposite of a bodybuilder struggling to complete a single rep of butt wipes.)<\/p>\n

Mixing It Up<\/p>\n

There are ways to progress with strength training that don\u2019t involve bumping up the weight. Though the one-rep-max (the maximum amount of weight you can lift once, or 1RM) is often touted online as a benchmark, it \u201cisn\u2019t really applicable to everyday life,\u201d Holder says.
If anything, focus on the three-to-five-rep-max (which should be around 85% of your 1RM), but also consider other factors, like building muscular endurance with higher reps and still being able to move well.<\/p>\n

Aside from increasing the weight\u2014which can increase the risk of injury, especially if form is compromised\u2014there are other ways to add variance to your workouts. For example, if you\u2019re doing push-ups, you can try performing reps where you lower yourself as slowly as possible, to spend more time working against your weight and gravity. You can also try to \u201cexplode\u201d out of the bottom of a squat\u2014mixing up the tempos to keep things interesting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to apply simple things that you could do on your own,\u201d Holder says, \u201cthink about it in three ways.\u201d One is doing \u201ca couple sets a day of an activity, [like] bodyweight, close to failure, or high reps.\u201d Second is to get the body \u201cused to moving slow and controlled through ranges of motion.\u201d Third, whenever you find yourself with a spare 15 minutes or so, is to spend some time performing the key movement patterns. \u201cIt gets your body used to staying strong, without spending a lot of time in the gym and still being able to live your life,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Consider the Exercise Snack<\/p>\n

Holder, the champion of the Exercise Snack<\/a>, also demonstrates that you can get a decent dose of exercise even if all you have is some space in your apartment and 15 minutes. No matter your current level of fitness, a small dose of movement can build or maintain strength.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe exercise snack mindset is ‘I don’t want to lose it.’ Especially if you’re already taking the time to build a level of strength, or you’re just trying to incrementally progress your way there,\u201d Holder says. \u201cYou could have a weight lying around the house, and you pick five exercises you do a day for three sets, one to three sets of 12 reps each.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can also do bodyweight exercises to failure, or use a relatively light weight to perform reps until failure in a short amount of time, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to apply simple things that you could do on your own,\u201d he says, \u201cthink about it in three ways.\u201d One is doing \u201ca couple sets a day of an activity, [like] bodyweight, close to failure, or high reps.\u201d The second is to get the body \u201cused to moving slow and controlled through ranges of motion.\u201d Third, whenever you find yourself with a spare 15 minutes or so, is to spend some time performing the key movement patterns. \u201cIt gets your body used to staying strong, without spending a lot of time in the gym, and still being able to live your life,\u201d Holder says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Not About Vanity, It\u2019s About Living Longer<\/p>\n

Strength training is a completely different animal than bodybuilding. The former is about longevity. Muscles are longevity organs, Holder says, specifically endocrine organs that release different hormones crucial for healthy living. \u201cIt\u2019s not always a vanity project,\u201d he says. As we age, our muscle mass and strength decrease (a condition known as sarcopenia), in turn increasing our frailty and chance of death. The more strength you can add now, the more grateful you\u2019ll be in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aside from targeting the major muscle groups, Holder recommends \u201cprehab\u201d exercises (those that can prevent injury before you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[1777,49,48,407,84,1776,1778,343,406],"class_list":["post-1193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-_seo","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-strength-training","tag-textbelowcenterfullbleed","tag-web","tag-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}