Don’t use the weight room? It’s something you should definitely consider. You know that being active is imperative to a healthy lifestyle. You’ve heard that keeping a healthy heart involves cardiovascular activities. What you may have forgotten is that keeping all of your muscles strong, not just your heart, is equally important.

WebMD states that “…strength training is essential. It can slow the muscle loss that comes with age, build the strength of your muscles and connective tissues, increase bone density, cut your risk of injury, and help ease arthritis pain.” Does this mean that you need to be buff to lead a healthy lifestyle? Absolutely not. There are two very different goals you can have with the use of a weight room: building muscle and toning muscle (defining existing muscles).

To tone muscle, you need to find a comfortable weight, and do a few sets with high repetitions. First, you will need to find a machine that works the muscle you are trying to tone. Repetitions are the number of times you do an exercise in a row. You may do 20 repetitions and this can be considered a set. Then, you rest for a couple minutes, and do another set. If, by the end of your sets, you didn’t feel anything, you may need to increase the number of sets or your weights.

To build muscle, you want fewer repetitions, but you’ll need to increase your weight. It should be difficult for you to finish your routine. In the case of building muscle, if you don’t feel anything, it isn’t working.

An important thing to remember is that in order to build or tone muscles, they must be given rest. You can choose to do strength training every other day, or upper-body one day and lower-body the next.