What are the different ways to do strength training?

There are a lot of different ways to do strength training. It is not necessary to have access to a weight machine. Free weights -- such as dumbbells, exercise bands, and your own body -- are all excellent weights to carry. Some strength coaches actually prefer free weights and exercise bands over stationary machines because they require the lifter to engage the pathways between your brain and muscles to control and balance the weights. Don't forget: In this age of high-tech gym equipment, it can be highly effective to lift just your own upper body weight with push-ups and chin-ups and your lower body weight with short arc squats.

Strength training simply means performing against some type of resistance; this can be gravity like calisthenics, weight machines, cables, tubing, or free weights. Calisthenics like push-ups, pull ups, dips, prisoner squats, hand stands etc force the body to resist against the gravity of a certain percentage of the person’s body weight ranging from 10% to over 100% depending on the position used and the movement. Strength can also be developed using rubber tubing, cables. Strength-training machines found t commercial gyms, and free weights like dumbbells and barbells. To gain strength the exercise simply needs to be hard enough and provide enough resistance to make more than 15-20 repetitions impossible to perform without rest. The resistance the muscles must overcome helps the body develop strength.  To continue to develop strength the resistance must gradually get harder and heavier to continue to force the muscles to adapt. This can be accomplished by adding more weight or resistance, using more of your body weight or changing the leverage of your limbs to make the movement harder to do. 

Frequency, intensity, time, tempo, reps, sets, rest, and fun all play a part in varying your strength training program. Frequency is how many times per week you work out; intensity is how hard you work out; time is how long you work out during each session, tempo is how fast you perform each exercise, reps are the number of times each exercise is performed, sets are groups of reps, rest is the time you take to recuperate between each set, and fun is how much enjoyment you get out of the workout. Vary these elements depending on your fitness goals.

There are many different ways to strength train. You can use dumbells, resistance tubing, kettlebells, and sandbags. The goal with strength training is to progessively overload the muscles and utilizing different types of equipment can help keep your body challenged.

There are many ways to strength train.  Strength or resistance training is your muscles overcoming a force.  This force can be in the form of lifting your own body weight, i.e. squats, pushups, pull ups.  It can also be with dumbbells, barbells, elastic tubing, medicine balls, kettle bells or a suspension trainer such as the TRX.  You can use machines in the gym, and there are many different manufacturers and types of machines.  Some are plate-loaded, some use cables, and some are computer controlled.  There are lots of choices and you can go high tech or low tech and still get an effective workout in.