Add a Strength Day – 4 Minutes with Bill

Adding a strength day to your existing workout routine can help you increase your overall fitness level and may slow the aging process. Learn to properly perform squats, deadlifts and presses with a barbell and heavy dumbbells.

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Transcript of video:

Hi, this is Bill Russell. Welcome to another episode of 4 Minutes with Bill. Today we’re going to talk about adding a strength day to your existing fitness routine. You may be working out regularly, adding a lot of cardio to your routine and you might be limiting your strength work. Gettting stronger and adding muscle is one of the best ways to slow down the aging process. It will rev up your metabolism and just make you feel better. You’ll feel better, you’ll look better, and you’ll be able to perform better in whatever sport, game or activity that you participate in, and you’ll find that you’ll have more energy through the day. If you’re going to one of the more popular group fitness classes in town that have you spend a lot of time on a rower and a treadmill and then maybe toss a few light dumbbells or kettlebells around, you’re really missing an important strength component to your routine. Yes, you can do some good with 10 and 15 and 20 pound dumbbells, but it’s mainly for added cardio. You’re not going to get strong like you would if you learn how to back squat, dead lift and do presses with a barbell or at least a heavy set of dumbbells. One of the reasons why most people don’t add a heavy strength day to their routine is they just don’t know how to do the exercises properly. Lifting heavy is not terribly complicated, but it is important that you do it right. If you use improper form, it’s really easy to hurt yourself and you may be doing damage long term that you’re not aware of today. I would recommend that you find a coach or a trainer who can teach you the proper form and technique for squats, dead lifts and presses and accessory exercises that help build those movements. The most important thing is to learn proper movement patterns, so you’ll be starting with light weights. If any coach starts you with a heavy barbell without practicing the fundamentals to make sure that you’ve got good movement patterns, you might want to find a different coach. Please, whatever you do, don’t ask your buddy to help you learn to squat or deadlift unless he or she is a coach or a trainer and certainly don’t look at other people at the gym and mimic them. That’s one of the biggest mistakes you can make, patterning yourself after somebody that you’re watching at the gym. Your best bet is to find a local CrossFit gym with a coach that understands those lifts and can help work around your limitations. Once you learn the proper technique and form, you can do those lifts anywhere. You can go to your gym and do those exercises on your own. You can use those skills for the rest of your life. I’m happy to do that for you at CrossFit Cleveland. You can come in and we can meet, do a little bit of an assessment. I can give you an idea of how long I think it might take. If you’re a past lifter and you just need a little bit of a refresher, we can do a lot in an hour. If you work out a lot, but you don’t have any barbell background, you should plan on having at least four or five sessions to really get a good understanding of basic squatting, dead lifts and presses and I can also show you some accessory movements that are important to be doing in addition to those heavy lifts. You can contact me at bill@crossfitcleveland.com, or my phone number is 440-915-7856. It’s really valuable taking one hour a week, and adding that strength routine. I think you’ll really enjoy the results. Thanks for listening and until next time, have a great day.