Wouldn't you want to start exercising if you knew that it may build your bones and muscles, strengthen your heart, help you lose or maintain weight, and enhance your balance? According to studies, strength training can offer all of those advantages, as well as additional ones.
According to the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), strength training, also referred to as weight or resistance training, is physical exercise intended to increase muscular strength and fitness by working a particular muscle or muscle group against external resistance, such as free weights, weight machines, or your own body weight.
Neal Pire, CSCS, the executive director of the Greater New York ACSM regional chapter and an ACSM-certified exercise physiologist, says, "The basic principle is to apply a load and overload the muscle so it needs to adapt and get stronger."
Furthermore, it's critical that everyone understands that strength training is not limited to bodybuilders and elite athletes. According to Gabrielle Lyon, DO, a functional medicine practitioner in New York City and the founder of the Institute for Muscle-Centric Medicine, "strength training is critical, not just for looking good and being strong, but for preventing the diseases of aging."
According to the Cleveland Clinic, regular strength or resistance training is beneficial for individuals of all ages and fitness levels to help avoid the sarcopenia, or natural loss of lean muscle mass that occurs with aging. A 2019 research review found that it can also help those with long-term health issues like obesity, diabetes, or heart disease.
It's possible that strength training can extend your life. Even if they don't include aerobic exercise in their routine, strength trainers had a lower risk of dying young than non-trainers, according to a meta-analysis released in February 2022.
According to Ramona Braganza, a celebrity personal trainer in Los Angeles who holds certification from the Canadian fitness education organization Canfitpro, strength training is fundamentally centered on functional movements such as lifting, pushing, and pulling. The goal is to develop the muscle and coordination required for daily activities.
Strength training can be scary to some individuals, but it can improve your capacity to move safely and effectively in daily life, according to her. For example, consider your ability to bend over and pick up an object, lift something and place it on a shelf, carry groceries through the door, or get back up after falling. According to Braganza, "getting up off the floor requires you to recruit muscles in your legs, glutes, abs, and upper body."
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Physical Exercise Guidelines for Americans, children and adolescents between the ages of 6 and 17 should include strength training in their 60 minutes of physical exercise per day, three days per week. Adults should strive to perform all-around, moderate-to-intense muscle-strengthening exercises at least twice a week.
Additionally, you must take breaks from weight-training exercises.
According to Pire, "you get better in between workouts, not during them." To allow your body time to repair and regenerate the muscle tissue damaged by lifting or resistance, you should take a day off between strength training sessions.
Strength training may improve your health in the following 8 ways:
Aside from the well-acknowledged (and often Instagrammed) benefit of giving your muscles more definition and tone, how can strength training benefit you? Here are a handful of the numerous methods:
1. Strength training enhances your fitness and strength.
Although this advantage is apparent, it shouldn't be disregarded. "Having strong muscles helps you accomplish daily tasks more easily," Pire explains, noting that as we age, our natural ability to gain muscle is lost.
Strength training involves contracting your muscles against an opposing force to strengthen and tone them, it is also known as resistance training. According to the Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine, there are two types of resistance training:
Resistance that Isometric This involves tensing your muscles against a stationary surface, such as the floor during a push-up.
Strength Training That Isotonic This entails using a range of motion to contract your muscles, similar to what weightlifting does.
2. Strength training guards muscle mass and bone health.
According to Harvard Health Publishing, aging causes us to lose as much as 3 to 5 percent of our lean muscle mass every decade, starting at age 30.
A 2017 study found that postmenopausal women with poor bone mass might enhance their functional performance, bone density, structure, and strength with just 30 minutes twice a week of high-intensity resistance and impact exercise. This training had no negative side effects.
Similarly, muscle-strengthening exercises help everyone maintain or grow their muscle mass, strength, and power—all of which are critical for maintaining bone, joint, and muscle health as we age. This is stated in the HHS physical activity guidelines.
3. Strength training promotes calorie burn in your body.
Any type of activity increases your metabolism, which is the rate at which your body burns calories while at rest.
After strength training, your body continues to burn calories as it returns to a more rested state (in terms of energy expended), which is the case with both aerobic activity and strength training. The American Council on Exercise (ACE) refers to it as "excess post-exercise oxygen consumption."
However, depending on how hard you're working, your body uses more energy during strength, weight, or resistance training (i.e., the more energy, the harder you work). Therefore, the more energy you use during the workout, the greater the effect. Your body will burn more calories during and after your workout as it adjusts to resting conditions.
4. Strength training aids in permanent weight loss.
Strength training can aid exercisers in boosting weight reduction more than aerobic exercise alone since it increases surplus postexercise oxygen consumption more than aerobic exercise, according to Pire. "Compared to an aerobic workout, resistance or strengthening exercises keep your metabolism active for a much longer period of time after exercise."
This is due to the fact that lean tissue is generally more active tissue. He continues, "You'll burn more calories—even while you sleep—if you have more muscle mass than if you didn't have that extra lean body mass."
In a 2017 study, it was discovered that dieters who performed strength training exercises four times a week for eighteen months lost the greatest amount of fat (about eighteen pounds, as opposed to ten pounds for nonexercisers and sixteen pounds for aerobic exercisers).
In particular, when strength training is coupled with calorie restriction through nutrition, you might possibly be able to further reduce body fat. A small study published in 2018 found that people who followed a combined full-body resistance training and diet for four months improved their lean muscle mass while reducing their fat mass more effectively than those who either did resistance training or dieting.
5. Strength training promotes better muscle tone and adaptability.
According to earlier studies, strength training also improves your posture, balance, and coordination.
According to a 2017 review, performing at least one resistance training session per week, either on its own or as part of a program with various workouts, increased muscle mass by 7.5 percent, increased muscle strength by 37 percent, and increased functional capacity (which is related to a lower risk of falls) by 58 percent in elderly, frail people.
The strength of the muscles that keep you upright determines your balance, according to Pire. "Your balance will improve the stronger those muscles are."
6. Strength Training Is Beneficial for the Management and Prevention of Chronic Diseases
Research has shown that strength training can also help reduce symptoms in patients with a variety of long-term illnesses, such as HIV, neuromuscular diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and some malignancies. Strength training combined with other healthy lifestyle modifications can help improve glucose control for the more than 30 million Americans who have type 2 diabetes, according to a 2017 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Additionally, a 2019 review published in Frontiers in Physiology revealed that regular resistance training can help stave off cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and chronic mobility issues.
7. Strength training increases vitality and lifts your spirits.
A 2018 meta-analysis of 33 clinical trials revealed that strength training is a valid treatment option (or adjunctive treatment) for reducing symptoms of depression.
According to Pire, "all exercise boosts mood because it increases endorphins." However, he notes that more studies examining the neurochemical and neuromuscular reactions to strength training provide more proof that it has a beneficial impact on the brain.
Additionally, a 2019 study found evidence that strength training may improve your quality of sleep. And as we all know, getting a better night's sleep can do wonders for maintaining your happiness.
8. Strength training is beneficial for heart health.
According to HHS, muscle-strengthening exercises, in addition to aerobic activity, help lower blood pressure and lower the risk of heart disease and hypertension. Additionally, a comprehensive analysis of 38 randomized controlled trials published in 2021 came to the conclusion that weight training plus aerobic exercise is superior to aerobic exercise alone for the rehabilitation of cardiac disease.
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