Strength Training: The Fountain of Youth?

Strength training is becoming the new fountain of youth.

Studies show that regular strength training helps preserve muscle mass for men and women as they age and reduces the risk of osteoporosis for older women.

That helps explain why more folks are racing to the gym. Overall, the number of people who use free weights more than 100 days during the year increased from about 7 million in 1989 to more than 8.5 million in 1993, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association. Others use free weights at least occasionally.

And millions more use circuit machines.

But many of these people would admit they aren't sure how best to train for maximum results. And it's no wonder they're confused. Just listen to conversations over the barbells, and you'll hear different opinions on techniques, style, weight and repetitions. Even the experts and new books give conflicting advice.

Ellington Darden, a popular, sometimes controversial, strength-training expert, pushes a program that encourages taking muscles to failure during weight training. Failure is when you can't do another repetition with good form.

Darden, who was director of research for Nautilus for 20 years, recommends one set of eight to 12 repetitions of each of your weight-lifting exercises, instead of several sets of reps. He advises always trying one more rep even when it seems impossible. His plan:

-- Begin with a weight you can lift eight times. When you can perform 12 repetitions, then increase the weight or resistance by approximately 5%.

-- Don't train too often. Allow at least 48 hours' recovery time between workouts.

-- Drink lots of water to avoid dehydration.

"I believe in harder, slower, briefer exercise. Don't look for ways to make the exercise longer because you'll have to decrease the intensity," says Darden, author of Living Longer Stronger (Perigee Books, $12).

"What I recommend is heavy but slow - taking four seconds or longer to lift the weight and four seconds to lower it. When you train slow, you make the exercise more productive and by reducing the momentum, you vastly reduce the probability of injury, but you make it harder."

Leisa Hart, a personal trainer and co-author of the new Buns of Steel Total-Body Workout (Warner Books, $13.99), uses a similar method for many of her female clients. She advises them to push their muscles to exhaustion with one set of eight to 15 repetitions. When they can do 15 reps using correct form, she has them increase the resistance. Her advice: Use a spotter for safety.

But other researchers disagree with Darden's approach. "There is no good evidence that positive effects of training to failure are as good as not training to failure," says Michael Stone of the National Strength and Conditioning Association. If you train to failure or train heavy all the time, you'll increase your risk of overtraining and injury.

He says the best way to train is when you don't quite reach failure, although you may feel a slight discomfort in the muscles. You should not feel pain in the joints.

Stone's research and that of others show you get better results for building strength, power and endurance if you do multiple sets of exercises in weight training without lifting to failure. He advises varying the routine between heavier and lighter lifting.

His recommendation: Train three times a week. On Monday and Friday, do the same exercises. Monday is your heavy lifting day and Friday you might lift a little lighter (say, 15% lighter) weights but the same number of repetitions. Then on Wednesday, you'd do a different group of exercises altogether.

Stone says it's easy to take untrained people and do anything with them and get results. The trick is what to do after the first three months. "Once you become trained in relative terms you've got to have more heavy and light days and put more variation into your training program."

The American College of Sports Medicine advises doing a minimum of one set of eight to 12 repetitions. Do that for eight to 10 different exercises at least twice a week.

So who's wrong and right in this weight-lifting debate?

"It's a lot like politics, nutrition and religion - everybody has opinions and theories," says Ed Burke, former coach of the U.S. Olympic cycling team and one of the authors of a new book, Getting in Shape (Shelter/Random House, $15). "I don't know if anybody is totally wrong."