Get With The Strength Training Program

(CBS)  The latest trend in fitness is total body strength training. It's time efficient, burns tons of calories, and can really help you tone up.

On The Early Show Friday, exercise guru Minna Lessig showed how to incorporate strength training into your workout.

She demonstrated four exercises that use four exercise tools: the single arm row with dumbbell, exercise with tubing, the lunge criss-cross with medicine ball, and the dead-lift with body bar.

Strength training, Lessig explains, is a necessary component of a balanced fitness program. The benefits are numerous: increased muscular strength, which enhances quality of life because it enables you to better perform daily activities; improved muscle tone and appearance; increased bone density, which helps reduce the risk of osteoporosis; decreased risk of coronary disease; improved posture; and increased resting metabolism. It helps reduce body fat, which is great for middle-aged women who typically run into sluggish metabolism and find it harder to keep weight off, and it improves mood and combats feelings of depression, due to increased levels of dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine.

To watch the segment, click here.

To buy some of the equiipment featured in the segment, click here and here.