How to Get Stronger in the New Year

Are you making a resolution to get stronger in the new year? Here are some research-backed strategies that can help.

How to Build Muscle in 9 Minutes

By Dr. Jordan Metzl and Karen Barrow

Want to get strong, but don’t have time for a gym? Strength training is key for increasing flexibility, reducing injury risk and maintaining an overall healthy body. The best part is that it doesn’t have to take long. Here we’ll teach you a simple nine-minute-long strength training program that you can complete in your own home. All you need is a set of dumbbells (or another type of weight), a clock and the goal of building a stronger body. Read more>>>

In a Hurry? Try Express Weight Training

By Gretchen Reynolds

Here’s some good news for anyone who does not have the time or inclination to linger in the gym and grunt through repeated, hourslong sets of various weight-training exercises in order to build muscular strength.

An inspiring new study of how much — or little — weight training is needed to improve muscles’ strength and size finds that we may be able to gain almost the same muscular benefits with a single, brief set of each exercise.

The catch is, that set has to be draining. Read more>>>

Yoga to Make You Strong

By Ari Isaacman Bevacqua

Want a tighter core, solid arms and sculpted legs? Not only can yoga make you more flexible and reduce stress, it can also make your body strong. By starting with poses like dolphin push-ups and half handstand, you can build and tone muscles throughout the body, and your mind will get a workout too. Now roll out your yoga mat and get ready to sweat! You’ll be amazed by what you can do. Read more>>>

Weight Training May Help to Ease or Prevent Depression

By Gretchen Reynolds

Lifting weights might also lift moods, according to an important new review of dozens of studies about strength training and depression. It finds that resistance exercise often substantially reduces people’s gloom, no matter how melancholy they feel at first, or how often — or seldom — they actually get to the gym and lift.

There already is considerable evidence that exercise, in general, can help to both stave off and treat depression. A large-scale 2016 review that involved more than a million people, for instance, concluded that being physically fit substantially reduces the risk that someone will develop clinical depression. Other studies and reviews have found that exercise also can reduce symptoms of depression in people who have been given diagnoses of the condition. Read more>>>

How to Get Strong

By Anahad O’Connor

Everyone knows that exercise is one of the best things you can do for your health. But most people ignore one crucial component of it: resistance training. According to federal researchers, only 6 percent of adults do the recommended minimum amount of at least two muscle-strengthening workouts each week.

Neglecting resistance training — any type of workout that builds strength and muscle — is a big mistake. It increases your metabolism, lowers your body fat and protects you from some of the leading causes of early death and disability. You don’t have to lift like a bodybuilder (or look like one) to benefit from resistance training. And it’s never too late to get started.

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