I love strength training. It helps build muscle, burn fat, gives you amazing confidence, and more. But in the past, very little information was available about how to use it therapeutically. That’s why I was absolutely overjoyed when I saw this book come out, Resistance Training for the Prevention and Treatment of Chronic Disease by William Kraemer and Joseph Ciccolo.
Original source: here.
Many studies looking at the therapeutic effects of exercise really only talk about endurance training, or aerobic training. It’s well-established that it’s beneficial. But up until now, there was no resource on how to use resistance training as an adjunct to treatment of different conditions.
Here’s what I like about this book:
- It’s a very comprehensive literature review. It lists different studies, how they were done and what the conclusions were about the effects of resistance training on various different chronic conditions.
- I’m a geek. I like to know not just what works, but why it works. In each chapter, there is a section on possible mechanisms.
- Where there is still very little research on the effects of strength training on different conditions, it tells you outright.
- It says in which circumstances resistance training is more effective than aerobic training, and in which circumstances aerobic training is more effective than resistance training.
It also shows how how much in its infancy is the research on the therapeutic effects of strength training. In most studies, the researchers give very basic protocols, which still leaves a lot of questions, like:
– What would be the effects of different weights, frequencies, rest periods, etc.
– Other mechanisms of action
– And more
But hey, can’t fault the authors for not explaining data that is simply not available yet.
One word of warning though. This book is written for exercise professionals. It uses a lot of technical terminology, which if you don’t have a background in exercise, physiology, etc., you might just get lost. But if you can understand this terminology, this book most definitely belongs on your bookshelf.
