Fitness comes in all shapes and sizes, and so does passion. One person may love lifting weights and deliberately building muscle to become stronger and healthier. Another person may love running and dream of participating in races and marathons. At the end of the day, every sport has a pool of people who are passionate about it.
In addition to passion, all of them have one thing in common: the need for strength.
Building strength and stamina goes hand-in-hand with improving your skills. Strength training should be of the utmost importance to anyone who wants to constantly improve. What is strength training? Many associate it with bodybuilding, but it’s crucial for anyone passionate about any sport.
How do you fit strength training into an already busy training schedule? Committing to the gym probably feels daunting at this point, so perhaps it’s time to consider finding the best strength training app. This allows for more freedom and you can still achieve excellent results with bodyweight strength training done at home.
The Importance of Strength Training for Athletes
You’re already training for your specific sport regularly, so why add generic strength training to the list? This type of training has nothing to do with particular skills and focuses entirely on your strength and stamina. It also increases your basic motor skills like coordination and muscle movement, allowing you to better perform in your sport.
And perhaps the most important - the increased strength and improved form help you better prevent injury. Below are some specific examples of how strength training helps athletes of all kinds.
Strength Training for Runners
Strength training for runners does more than increase their stamina - which is paramount to mastering the art of running.
Runners should focus on exercises that strengthen their upper body and core. This improves your posture and form, allowing you to move safely and more efficiently. Following that, exercises that work the lower body will increase the amount of force you can put into the ground with each step. This increases your power, which means faster running.
Strength Training for Cyclists
Cycling is another popular sport that requires much strength and stamina. Cyclists should look for exercises that target their legs and core as these are the predominant muscle groups used when on a bike. Cycling is also highly repetitive, which can be dangerous if not executed properly. Cyclists should work to improve muscle endurance and flexibility to avoid strain and injury related to such repetitive actions.
Due to cycling’s highly aerobic nature, cardio exercises and others that improve stamina are useful as well.
Strength Training for Swimmers
Swimming is similar to cycling and running in that it’s a combination of cardio and strength that must be improved. But, posture and form are uniquely important to swimmers as their goal is, most often, to be the fastest one in the pool.
This requires great strength in all areas to ensure you remain in control of every little movement. Lack of stamina is also detrimental as tired swimmers become sloppy, leading to muscle strain or injury as well as slower swim times.
Bodyweight strength training for swimmers should include plenty of focus on the upper body and core as these are the muscles that pull you forward in the water. Keep in mind though, that this doesn’t mean you can neglect the lower body.
The Perfect Solution
All of this sounds great - but it is a lot. You may think there’s no way you’ll ever make it out to the gym enough to justify the cost, despite knowing how important strength training is.
No need to fret, though, because 30 Day Fitness is perhaps the best strength training app on the market.
Customized Plan
First of all, 30 Day Fitness creates a customized plan for you based on your fitness goals. And it’s not just randomly generated, either. The app’s content and plans were created by licensed professionals. It’s like having a personal trainer in your pocket, that works on your schedule. Whether you’ve got 20 minutes twice a week, or an hour every day, you’ve got the perfect workouts at your disposal.
Not only does it create a plan for you, but it provides all the details. There is a library of individual exercises to browse and run through at your own discretion, but it also puts them together into full, targeted workouts. This eliminates all the guesswork and trial and error and lets you start making real progress right away.
If you’re ever stuck on how to do a particular exercise, they’ll never leave you hanging, either. Every single exercise comes with detailed written instructions as well as an easy-to-follow video guide that shows you the correct form and movement.
Suitable for All Levels
Another great thing about 30 Day Fitness is that it meets you wherever you’re at. If you’ve been working out for a few years already and you want to further improve, they have plenty of advanced and challenging workouts.
On the flip side, they’ve got you covered even if you’ve never done a single pushup or touched a single weight before. All their exercises and workouts are categorized by length and difficulty level so it’s easy to find exactly what you’re looking for.
Track Your Progress
Lastly, the app is a great way to keep track of where you’re at. Everything is documented so you can look back on what you’ve done, which workouts and challenges you’ve completed, and how you’ve progressed in terms of difficulty level and workout length.
Not only is it good to know where you’re at, but this works as a great motivator, too. If you’re getting discouraged or hit a plateau, you can look back and tangibly see how far you’ve come. You can also look ahead and set goals for moving up in difficulty.
Strength Training is Essential
The sports listed here are just examples of how important strength training is for athletes. By adding strength training to your routine, you will improve faster and you’ll better protect yourself from injury.
30 Day Fitness is customizable, professional, and affordable - the perfect strength training partner!
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