Can small every day efforts increase strength?

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daneejela
daneejela Posts: 461 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi,

I've been reading a lot of fitness blogs and most of them put an accent on not too frequent but heavy training in order to build strength and muscles.

I tried that in the past but after years of doing nothing it's usually too hard for me and I quickly quit.

So, my question is - will I make any progress with small everyday effort, like half a minute in plank, two, three times a day, or similar?

In other words how beneficial are small but frequent "trainings"?

Replies

  • natruallycurious
    natruallycurious Posts: 359 Member
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    What are your goals? Planks are an effective way to strengthen your core, even in small but frequent doses, with the caveat being that it needs to at least be long enough for you to feel it. If you do a 10 second plank and feel nothing, you probably aren't going to get any stronger for having done it.

    If your goal is to build strength, I would recommend following a dedicated lifting program. There are tons of suggestions on here. I don't follow these personally, but Starting Strength and New Rules of Lifting for Women seem to be popular suggestions, as does Stronglifts. With a progressive program, it shouldn't be too hard for you because it is based on your current ability and helps you steadily increase as you get stronger.
  • JBApplebee
    JBApplebee Posts: 481 Member
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    I work out at 9Round, a kickboxing exercise gym. It takes me an average of 35 minutes to finish all 9 rounds, and I've lost over 50 pounds since January 20th & I'm stronger than I have been in quite a while. You have to work at it to get stronger, but you have to increase your effort to get stronger. Work up to a 1 minute plank, do side planks, do planks on a medicine ball, other ab exercises etc.

    If you don't mix things up, your body will adapt & you'll plateau.
  • Johnd2000
    Johnd2000 Posts: 198 Member
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    I was as weak as a kitten when I started. Last October I could only manage 3 second planks (3-4 reps) on my knees. I now do 60 seconds (6-8 reps) full planks twice a week.

    I’m no expert at strength training, but I generally find it best not to work the same muscle group on consecutive days. If it still hurts from last time, I’m not ready to stress those muscles again.
  • emmamcgarity
    emmamcgarity Posts: 1,593 Member
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    I use 2 lb dumbells and a fitness ball 2-3 times per week. Eventually, I'll add more, but I am starting to notice some strength improvements.
  • madmickie
    madmickie Posts: 221 Member
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    Basic principle of training is that your body will adapt to deal with any extra stress put upon it. Once you have adapted to a certain level then you have to increase the stress further to get more adaptation.
  • mutantspicy
    mutantspicy Posts: 624 Member
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    Regardless of how much the weight you use, you still need to put in big "effort" to make gains. You could look up Body Weight strength routines to get started with building your strength. But you still need to put in a lot of effort to make improvements. You have to be willing to challenge yourself.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,102 Member
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    "Heavy" only means what is heavy to you personally, at the time. It doesn't mean some big abstract impossible thing.

    One way or another, in order to progress, you have to challenge your body. Different challenges result in different sorts of improvements. For cardiovascular system improvement, you need to do cardiovascular activities at an intensity/duration that challenges you. For strength, you need to do strength building activities at an intensity/duration that challenges you. There are more detailed things to be known about the tradeoffs between intensity and duration, but in a ridiculously broad way, high intensity things can be lower duration, and low intensity things need to be higher duration (more time, more reps, more sets, that sort of thing) in order to provide a challenge.

    Low intensity things done for a very short time are at best only challenging if your starting point is a quite low level of current fitness capability. Even then, the intensity and duration will need to increase over time, so it stays challenging.

    That said, walking briskly for 10 minutes 3 times a day is approximately equivalent to walking briskly once a day for 30 minutes. Also, anything is better than nothing. Getting in the habit of moving more, throughout your day, is more helpful than continuing current habits of immobility.

    You don't need to do things that are "too hard", just things that are a bit of a challenge, then keep adapting them so they stay a bit of a challenge. Not suffering, not "too hard", just challenging.

    Just putting this here: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you

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