Although it may sound intimidating, can start at home and can help achieve the physique you desire. When most people think of exercise, they usually think of cardiovascular (cardio) fitness such as running, swimming and riding a bike. While these forms of training are an essential part of maintaining good health and facilitating weight loss, strength training is often overlooked. However, it's an important part of staying healthy and keeping the muscles strong, and can be easily incorporated into any fitness regime, making it accessible for beginners, too.

Strength training is the use of resistance or weights to work a particular muscle group, building its strength, anaerobic endurance and size. You may know what works for you in terms of an exercise plan or you may be looking to begin a new regime. Whatever your motivation, it's important that your aerobic exercise is coupled with appropriate strength training to ensure that you get the optimal results from your workout, and that there are no factors missing when trying to reach your overall health and fitness goals. There are such a wide variety of strength exercises that everyone, beginners included, can use basic actions to help achieve targets.

Muscle strength and health diminishes as you get older, but a well-designed strength training plan can decelerate these effects and can do so much more.

The key advantage of strength training is that it increases muscle mass. It works to tone the muscles and helps to slow down and sometimes even halt the muscle loss that accompanies the aging process. In addition to this, a maintained training regime facilitates a temporary increase in metabolism and a more long-term rise in basal metabolism. This helps you to burn more calories throughout the day and even while you sleep. This comes together to maintain a healthy body weight. Another symptom of progressing age is that your bones begin to lose density and become weaker. Strength training increases bone density and strength and, as with muscle mass, decelerates bone loss.

If you are a beginner, just starting to exercise, then incorporating strength training into your regime will help you to sustain joint flexibility, which results in reduced risk of injury. Sustained training is an excellent way to manage chronic conditions such as arthritis, diabetes and osteoporosis. It boosts your stamina and brain function, elevating your mood and reducing your stress levels, and also helps you to sleep soundly at night and energize you when it counts.

These are but a few of the advantages that go hand in hand with strength training. It's a good idea to consult with a fitness professional before starting a new plan. He or she will be able to help you formulate a beginner's strength training regime that will work best for you. Remember that you needn't spend hours and hours in order to achieve results. 30 minute sessions, two or three times a week, is all you need to reap the rewards of strength training.