Want to look good, feel better and live a longer and healthier life?

Work on your strength and agility and you won’t go wrong.

Strength and agility training makes it easier for the body to do the things you do on a daily basis. It protects your bone and muscle mass, keeps your weight off for good, decreases the risk of injuries, boosts energy levels and improves your mood. With enhanced strength and agility, you will enjoy better coordination, balance and posture, reduce joint pain, minimise your risk of falling, and stave off conditions such as arthritis, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and type 2 diabetes.

In every activity you select, it is quite simple — follow the overload principle. That is, to increase strength and agility, your muscles and joints need to be stressed and stretched with a load greater than normal. The muscles and joints would be stimulated to adapt to the increased load. When you stretch a muscle, the muscle fibres or tendons attaching it to bone become longer. And the longer these fibres get, the more you can increase the size of the muscle during strength and agility training.

Strength exercises are any activities that compel the muscles to work harder than usual. They involve the use of body weight or working against resistance and usually increase the strength, power, size and endurance of muscles.

Strength exercises should be challenging, but they should not be stressful. You should lift a weight you can comfortably manage in several repetitions.

Agility exercises are any activities that improve the ability of your joints to maintain the movement necessary for undertaking daily tasks and physical activity. Flexibility is the range of motion in a joint or group of joints or the ability to move joints effectively through a full range of motion

Strength and agility are not acquired overnight. As a rule, anything gained quickly is not going to last and only a slow, steady and consistent regimen will deliver your desired strength and agility. It takes at least six weeks of training to see a significant change in a muscle, whether in terms of length or strength. Building strength and agility gradually over time is the best and safest way to prevent injuries. Variation is important in maximising the gains in strength and agility over time. So include exercises of varying intensity (weight lifted and amount of rest) and volume (sets, sessions and repetitions), which will provide greater stimulus for strength and agility gains than simply following a set program and progressively increasing the amount of stretching or weight lifted.

At Body Planners our second week of our BP@Home programme is dedicated to strength and agility, giving you all the benefits listed above. The sessions are challenging but also progressive we always offer alternative exercises or moves for the beginner so that you can still benefit fully from any session. Check out our website for more information.