Final answer:
Strength training is specifically aimed at increasing muscular strength through progressive overload, while resistance training encompasses a wider range of exercises targeting increases in strength, tone, mass, or endurance. Resistance training may include using various forms of resistance like weights or bodyweight, and the intensity does not necessarily have to increase over time.
Step-by-step explanation:
Strength training and resistance training are often used interchangeably, but there are subtle differences between the two. Strength training is a type of physical exercise specializing in the use of resistance to induce muscular contraction, which builds the strength, anaerobic endurance, and size of skeletal muscles. The key to effective strength training is progressively increasing the intensity of the exercise, which involves lifting heavier weights to challenge the muscles.
Resistance training, on the other hand, is any exercise that causes muscles to contract against an external resistance with the expectation of increases in strength, tone, mass, and/or endurance. The external resistance can be rubber exercise tubing, your own body weight, bricks, bottles of water, or any other object that causes the muscles to contract. A key aspect of resistance training is it incorporates a range of exercises that affect muscles differently, including the increase of connective tissue and the density of fast-twitch (FG) muscle fibers for hypertrophy or muscle enlargement seen in athletes and bodybuilders.
While resistance training can attribute to increases in strength, it is not solely focused on this aspect. It may also be focused on improving muscle tone and endurance without necessarily increasing the weight lifted, as in strength training. Example exercises in resistance training include lift or push against a resistance, such as weight or the body's own weight as in push-ups or squats.