You run the risk of tearing muscles or overtraining. Without proper rest in between workouts, your body can't recover from stress, and you may experience unpleasant symptoms including pain, trouble sleeping, decreased performance, fatigued muscles, and weakened immunity.
The cons of resistance training are that if not done correctly, it can lead to joint pain and/or injuries. It's also important to note that for people new to resistance training, it's best to start out slowly and gradually increase the intensity and weight as your body gets stronger.
Common injury risks in strength training
Overuse injuries can include muscle strains, tendinitis, and stress fractures. Lifting weights that are too heavy, rapidly increasing training intensity, or using improper technique can increase the risk of overuse injuries.
Disadvantages of strength include increased injury risk, potential muscle imbalances, limited functional application, risk of overtraining, potential weight gain, and equipment/space requirements.
The risk of injury is the biggest disadvantage of strength training. Strength training, especially when using weights, must be approached with the utmost attention to technique in order to be safe. If you are not properly trained it is easy to strain or even damage muscles, tendons, or joints.
Multiple scientific studies have attested to the power of the eccentric or negative portion of a rep for muscle growth. More muscle damage occurs during this part of the lift, which is cited as a key factor in hypertrophy. Put simply, we are stronger during the lowering portion of most exercises.
You don't need to spend hours a day lifting weights to benefit from strength training. You can see significant improvement in your strength with just two or three 20- or 30-minute strength training sessions a week.
Lifting and doing strength training without adequate nutrition, especially without enough protein, can actually lead to loss of muscle tissue. Furthermore, if you aren't eating right you won't have the energy to do the workouts that lead to muscle gain.
The abundance of research suggests that resistance training is at least as safe as aerobic exercise, such as walking and biking, for people with and without heart disease. A complete workout can take as little as 15 minutes.
Rather than achieving the desired outcome, excessive training without adequate recovery can lead to fatigue, decreased strength and endurance. Overtraining can also negatively affect mental health, causing symptoms like irritability, anxiety, depression and poor sleep quality.
Increased bone density and strength and reduced risk of osteoporosis. Improved sense of wellbeing – resistance training may boost your self-confidence, and improve your body image and your mood. Improved sleep and avoidance of insomnia. Increased self-esteem.
As muscle cells get smaller, fat cells tend to get bigger. After all, the muscles aren't working hard enough to burn away calories. This can lead to weight gain as soon as 14 days (or earlier) once you stop exercising, according to Men's Journal.
One possible reason your muscle is not growing could be that your training is more geared toward improving your strength vs hypertrophy (i.e. muscle growth). You want to fully activate your whole muscle to maximize growth. The last 5 or so reps performed in a set is where this happens.
How Often Should You Actually Do Strength Training? As mentioned, it's best to lift weights at least two to three days a week, with four to five days being your max if you're rotating muscle groups. That said, strength training comes in different forms, and you don't necessarily have to use heavy weights.
You might find it hard to recover from workouts if you lift every day. Inhibited recovery: Perhaps the biggest downfall to daily strength training is that your body doesn't get a real chance to recover. This can lead to muscle overuse injuries or issues with muscle imbalances if you don't carefully plan your workouts.
Extra protein intake can also lead to elevated blood lipids and heart disease since many high-protein foods are high in total and saturated fat. Because it can tax the kidneys, extra protein intake poses an additional risk to people predisposed to kidney disease.
When on a weight loss journey, lack of protein is a huge culprit of muscle loss. “Our bodies don't store protein like other nutrients, so it's important to eat the right amount every day,” says Kate. “Everybody is different and will have different protein requirements.
Walking is simple, free and one of the easiest ways to get more active, lose weight and become healthier. Sometimes overlooked as a form of exercise, walking briskly can help you build stamina, burn excess calories and make your heart healthier.
Deadlifts are the king of compound exercises since you're forced to engage all the major muscle groups all over your body while performing your reps. Deadlifts are among the most effective exercises for improving muscle mass and strength.
Con: Risk of Overuse Injuries.
Constant repetition of movements over higher reps can increase the risk of overuse injuries, such as tendonitis, Adrahtas says. And this is especially true if you're not maintaining proper form or taking enough time to recover between workouts.
GVT is defined by its distinctive set-and-rep scheme: 10 sets of 10. To make matters worse, your rest periods are short: 60 seconds between sets, if you're doing one main lift (such as a squat or bench press), and 90 to 120 seconds between sets, if you're alternating two lifts.