You can improve your overall fitness through strength training exercises. If you want to lose weight, increase muscle mass and tone your body, you should alternate weight training with aerobic exercise. If you want to build muscle mass, you will need to increase your daily caloric intake. Regardless of your end goal, use these tips to maximize your strength training exercises.

Taking your time to participate in strength training helps you concentrate on your movements and use correct form. If you do not use the correct form your muscles may not be doing all the work or you could injure yourself. Attention to form is extremely important when you are doing strength training that focuses on one small muscle group at a time. If your form is bad, you may be using momentum instead of muscle strength to lift your weights.

Warm up your muscles and get a good stretch before working out. This can decrease the chance of getting injured and help reduce soreness. You should practice similar stretching exercises after your workout to allow your muscles to cool down.

If your goals are to increase your fitness, lose weight and get trim, lifting light weights repetitively is the best choice. If your goal is to increase your muscle mass, you should lift extremely heavy weight with very few repetitions. Lift the heaviest possible weight that keeps your repetitions between 6 and 12 at a time. For building endurance, you should increase the number of repetitions. It is important to know what your final goal is before beginning your strength training exercises.

Stretching between sets keeps your muscles loose and flexible. Increasing your flexibility is a good way to avoid injuring your muscles and ligaments. Stretching also keeps your muscles warm for your continuing strength training.

You can use a variety of free weights and strength resistance training to improve your fitness. The most common types of resistance exercises include sit ups, push ups and pull ups. These are great exercises to do before bed and when you wake up in the morning.

Your abdominal and back muscles make up your core muscles. Having strong core muscles improves your posture and helps you use the correct form while doing most exercises. Core muscle strength is a vital part of all exercises because you are using those muscles whether you realize it or not. Doing Pilates is a good way to increase your core strength. There are a variety of ways to increase the strength of your abdominal muscles. It helps to work each of the four small muscle groups of the abdomen separately. Again, small controlled movements with a focus on proper form are important to building strong muscles.