What is Muscle Training?

Muscle training is the gaining of muscle mass and strength through exercise. While muscles can be worked and trained during everyday life, there are a number of specific ways in which individuals can build muscle and increase overall muscle fitness and density. Using a range of exercises that include isokinetic, isotonic, and isometric training, individuals can build larger and stronger muscles than they would with normal training.

Nearly all muscle training in most routines will be isotonic training. Through muscle contractions, individual muscle groups can be strengthened to an individual's needs, giving overall strength training throughout the exercise. While this is often the most popular form of muscle training, it does bring the disadvantage of inducing muscle soreness and often only strengthens the particular muscle that is being exercised. Similarly, isokinetic training uses muscle contractions to increase strength. It differs from isotonic training because muscle contractions are far quicker and a specialized machine has to be used to detect the speed of exercise, adding weight to slow the muscle.

Lastly, isometric training is used to develop muscle strength without contractions. Ideal for increasing static strength which is used to pull, push, or hold something up, exercises are quick and easy. They typically need to be used in a combined muscle training program to develop the greatest benefits.

When muscle training, most individuals use an exercise program that combines a number of weight-training methods with circuit training to increase overall fitness. Increases in muscle mass and strength typically are a result of extending a muscle group past its capabilities, therefore inducing it to change and develop to cope with the extra workload. Often referred to as resistance training, this is largely accomplished by increasing the weight of the barbells used in the exercise, in addition to alternating the number of exercise repetitions and number of sets carried out for a particular exercise.

There is a variety of opportunities for individuals looking to create a muscle training regime. Depending on the goals that they set, some may need to increase their overall power or strength endurance while others may simply want to enhance the overall size and strength of particular muscle groups. In addition, a large number of training options are available where many trainers use gyms to develop fitness. Others might prefer the simple and normally cheap range of exercises that can be carried out at home.