Understanding Your Goals

You want greater strength and physical power, perhaps to boost self-confidence to improve your posture. Your primary goal may be to improve your performance in a particular sport, or you may be intrigued by the challenges of the strength sports weightlifting and powerlifting. There are other benefits whether intended or incidental. Strength helps build bone density and can offset the effects of conditions like osteoporosis. It builds
muscle mass, and so can counteract the muscle loss that accompanies aging beyond the age of 30

Bodybuilding and strength training
Bodybuilding differs from strength training in that its primary goals are to maximize muscle
mass while reducing body fat, so sculpting your physique. It is a cosmetic activity, in which any gain in strength or power is a by product.

On the positive side, bodybuilding has undoubtedly inspired many people to get involved in strength and think about improving their fitness. The sport certainly provides some spectacular visuals, especially at the highest competitive levels. However, for every person who is enthralled at the prospect of huge biceps and rippling abs, there is another who finds such displays unappealing, and whose primary goal is simply to keep his or her body
healthy and in optimum condition for everyday life.

Training for the sport of life
Instead, you may simply want to look a bit better, increase your muscle mass a small amount, and reduce your body fat levels. Perhaps you want to be able to cope better with the demands of daily life and be able to continue to do this effectively well into old age. Resistance training can assist you in achieving any or all of these goals.

Training for sports
It is widely accepted today that athletes need to engage in strength and power training to enhance their sporting performance. Sport specific conditioning may include aspects of general strength training weightlifting, powerlifting, and even bodybuilding

Strength sports
Another aspect of strength training is participation in the two strength sports of weightlifting and powerlifting. The object in both is to lift as much weight as physically possible, in particular styles of lift, for one repetition.

Weightlifting features two lifts; the snatch, and the clean and jerk. In the snatch, the objective is to lift as much weight overhead, as quickly as possible and in one movement in the clean and jerk, two movements are utilized. Both these lifts are very technical and are performed powerfully and explosively. Weightlifting is an Olympic sport and weightlifters are arguably the most powerful athletes competing at an Olympic games. The abilities required
by the weightlifter include technique, power, speed, strength, flexibility, and courage. Although weightlifting is a sport in its own right, the techniques of the clean and jerk and the snatch are used extensively within sport-specific strength training and conditioning, as well as in more general strength training, due to their unparalleled ability to develop an individual’s power.

Powerlifting comprises the lifts of the bench press, squat, and deadlift. Ironically, powerlifting requires a large amount of pure strength but little explosive power, because the lifts are completed with incredibly heavy weights that can be moved only very slowly. Elite powerlifters are arguably the strongest athletes in the world.