The Benefits of Holistic Weight Training: Focusing on the Body as a Whole

In addition to this type of holistic strength training, swim spas have many other benefits. This is because your body isn't the only thing that gets a workout with holistic weight training. The hydrotherapy provided by swimming in a hot tub can provide relief from arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome pain while also improving circulation and reducing stress. There are even holistic weight training benefits for pregnant women and people with diabetes, which can greatly improve their quality of life.

Such free weight exercise as this provides a more natural way to train your muscles without the need for extra equipment or weights. The resistance provided by water is similar to being in an outdoor location like on top of a mountain or swimming against the currents in a river. As resistance training focuses on the whole muscle cell, this means that lactic acid builds up much slower than usual. You will find yourself completing more reps with each set and lifting larger weights for longer periods of time. This all helps to improve your strength, endurance and coordination;

Some people say that because it's "whole" or holistic, you're training weaknesses as well as strengths. This isn't true - strengthening muscles at the weakest percentile of activity is best done with isolation exercises, not whole-body strength trainings.

You see when you use more holistic training exercises, the weaker muscles in the group of muscles become a limiting factor, and are forced to grow faster to keep up with the other muscle groups. For example, when doing the 'lat pull down' exercise to train your back, you'll find that your forearms always get sore because you must use their strength to hold the the bar. Therefore, if your forearms are weak the strength of your back is limited by how much weight your forearms can hold. They will be hit first and hardest, and need to grow in order for you to hold more weight so you can then grow your back. Do you see how this works?

Another misconception about holistic strength training is that it has to be done slowly and steadily because it targets all the fitness components. While some skillful trainers prefer to do this, whole body movements are more likely to be fast and explosive if the purpose is weight loss. I could go into all the aspects of this intently, but that would be a lot to digest for now.

Let me mention one final misconception, however. That is that there's no telling what kind of shape you may end up in. The thing about holistic training is if you use the right methods, it will sculpt your muscles without having them bulk up or lose flexibility. This may not line up with what people expect from weight lifting but because long-term balance and health are more important than short-term gains, I think it's worth keeping an open mind about that detail. If you over-train one muscle group you'll end up looking strange as demonstrated by guy with enormous biceps or a huge upper body with chicken legs. Nobody wants that.