How to train with weights has been the subject of innumerable books and magazine articles. As the popularity of weight training has surged in the past thirty years, the science of it has progressed as well. What follows is a summary of the theories of weight training, with special emphasis on the issues that a new home gym user is likely to confront.

What To Do - For a muscle to grow, it must be worked hard. Sorry, there is no easy way out of this. The expression "No pain, no gain" is widely misunderstood. It is really only a simple way to say "If you don’t do any hard work, you won’t see much progress." In this way, it is unlike cardiovascular training, in which calories can be used up during a fairly comfortable routine. This hard work requirement is often conveyed by the admonishment that each set of exercises should be done to "failure." In other words, that you should keep doing until you cannot do any more. This is also sometimes referred to as "intensity."

Exercise gurus have long disagreed on how much weight to use. They also disagree on how many repetitions to do and how fast or slow to do them. The right answers to these questions depend largely on your objectives. These may even be the wrong questions. A better question may be how much time you muscles should be under resistance. Another area of disagreement is whether it is better to do partial repetitions or work a muscle through its full range of motion.

How Long to Do It – It may be better to work harder, but there are few proponents for working out longer. It is not possible to work muscles with maximum intensity for long periods. Thirty minutes all out is enough. After about forty-five minutes, the release of your muscle-building hormones drops off dramatically.

How Often to Do It – If you work a muscle to failure, it will take time for that muscle to first recover and then to grow. It is during this rest that the strength is really built. More often is not better. Working your muscles while they are still recovering only delays progress and could even prevent it. It takes young people a couple of days to recover, while older people do better on a week or more of rest. This difference is largely due to the reduced release of growth hormone as we age. Intense weight training can actually increase the release of growth hormone, but it requires adequate rest to benefit from it. One way people reconcile the need for intense, brief workouts with their desire to work out and make quick progress is to work some parts of the body one day and other parts on other days.

So Why Isn't Everyone in Good Shape? – Many beginners make the mistake of copying complicated workouts from magazines or books. Beware of complications! The mostly likely thing to hold someone back is a lack of discipline. Many home gym users lose their motivation soon after trying all the latest gimmicks and workouts. People using home gyms suffer the same problem as people at the big gyms. They start out with the best intentions, but soon give up. All it takes is consistency. You'll get results if you just don’t quit.