I get a lot of questions regarding strength training. Why should we do strength training? What is the importance of it? Why is strength training so famous? And why is strength training so recommended for multiple medical professionals, athletes and general individuals? There are a lot of benefits of strength training. But, I will tell you 5 amazing benefits that you will get if you include strength training in your life.
Strength training, resistance training, weight training, muscle training are more or less similar terms. And they are one of the multiple components of physical fitness. Apart from these, there are many other components in physical fitness.
Like endurance, flexibility, coordination, balance, speed, agility, reaction time and many more. If we understand the meaning of strength training, then it is a system of physical conditioning in which you exercise your muscles against an opposing force. And that opposing force can be any type of weight or resistance.
And we do this so that we can increase the strength, muscle mass and muscle endurance of our muscles. And for strength training, you use multiple types of tools. Dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, sandbags, medicine balls, resistance bands, body weight, suspension equipment etc.
And we use a lot of such equipment or tools. Also, what are your goals for strength training? It will depend on the individual. For example, many people's goal is muscle hypertrophy i.e. muscle size increase.
Many people's goal is muscle strength increase. Many people want us to focus on muscle endurance i.e. in simple terms, how long can a muscle sustain that particular work. This is called muscle endurance.
Or explosive power which is used in a lot of sports. These are all different aims of strength training. If I tell you from so many decades of personal experience, I always say that in all physical components, strength training is the most important.
And it should be your base. Of course, your aims can be different depending on the fact that what you want to achieve. Your goals can be different.
It is possible that you want to run fast. It is possible that you want more flexibility. It is possible that you want to jump higher.
There can be a lot of aims. But everyone's base is that strength training is very important. That is why you will see that almost every single athlete has a base of strength work.
If you notice any sport, then strength training will be seen as a must in every sport. And that is because strength training has multiple benefits depending on your goal. Irrespective of the fact that what is your profession, what is your age, strength training will always give you benefits.
The first and main benefit of strength training is that whatever your goal is, strength training will make you strong for it. Let's take a classic example of this. Let's say there is a particular female who wants to play with her young child.
But whenever she does this, she has pain in her back. She does not have enough strength to lift her. Or there is an elderly who wants to do basic work but has pain in his knees.
Or there is a particular athlete who wants to achieve his best in his sport. That is, he wants to increase his speed. He wants to improve his power.
He wants to increase the size of his muscles. Irrespective of age, strength training will always be your base. And it will help you the most.
For example, if there is pain in the knees of an elderly, along with his normal dietary intervention, if we focus on the strength training of his legs, where we help strengthen his quadriceps, his calves, his hamstrings, all these things, then automatically his joints will be strengthened. And in turn, he will be able to do his normal functional work. That's why we say being functionally strong.
The second major benefit of strength training is that to improve your body composition, strength training plays the most important role. For fat loss, lean muscle gain, and to shoot up your metabolism, strength training is the most potent weapon you have. To control your basal metabolic rate, the factor that is in your hand in the strongest way is strength training.
That's why I told when we talk about metabolism and how to increase it, then strength training is the thing that plays the most role, and you control it. And that is because the more lean muscle mass you carry, the more your basal metabolic rate will be. Because your lean muscle mass is metabolically active.
Even in rest periods, the energy to maintain itself is taken from stored fat. On the other hand, the most powerful tool for skinny fat individuals is strength training. Skinny fat are those individuals who have a high percentage of fat in their body, but their BMI is normal.
Skinny fat, and I told you that the most powerful tool for skinny fat is strength training. In fact, their diet is important, but more important than diet is strength work for skinny fat individuals. And that is because the major cause of skinny fat is the lack of adequate lean muscle mass.
The third most important reason for strength training is to strengthen your bones and joints. There is no tool more powerful than strength training. And this is most important for two categories.
One is for athletes who have to take good care of their joints. And second, more important than that is for the elderly. Because as their age increases, there is muscle loss, which is naturally a process called sarcopenia.
And along with that, there is also bone loss, which is called osteopenia. If we do not arrest these two things, then there is a high chance of osteoporosis. That is, their bones have become so brittle, that they can break even on a slight shock, and there can be fractures.
That is why many elderly do not even know that they are suffering from osteoporosis. One day, they slip or have a trauma, and they have a major fracture, which makes them suffer lifelong. Because at that age, it becomes very difficult to heal fractures, and their quality of life becomes very deep.
On the other hand, sarcopenia, that is, muscle loss, further increases the chances of fractures and falls. That is why a new coined term has been introduced today, which we call osteosarcopenia. In elderly cases, to increase skeletal muscle mass, exercise training is the cheapest and most reasonable intervention.
And multiple studies have shown that walking is a very good exercise, cycling is very good, but more effective than strength training, there is no particular exercise strategy for elderly, when it comes to strengthening their joints and muscles. The fourth benefit of strength training is that strength training reduces the risk of chronic diseases. Recently, multiple studies have proved that resistance training or strength training is as effective as endurance or aerobic training to reduce the risk of chronic diseases.
For example, we all know that when an individual is suffering from heart issues, cardiovascular diseases, then cardiovascular or endurance exercises are very beneficial. On the other hand, many people carry the wrong notion that you should not do strength training if you have any risk of cardiovascular diseases. However, today, multiple doctors and top cardiac surgeons also recommend that strength training is very beneficial for you, especially if you are suffering from a chronic disease, including cardiovascular diseases.
In fact, multiple clinical trials, including multiple meta-analysis studies, have shown that resistance training is more effective in controlling your blood pressure than aerobic training. The same benefits of resistance training are found in controlling your cholesterol levels, CRP levels, and blood sugar levels. When we talk about glycemic control and insulin resistance, in the case of diabetics, strength training is very effective.
In fact, I recommend strength training to my multiple clients, especially to diabetics. As we have seen, the most powerful tool for fat loss is your lean muscle mass. And nothing improves your lean muscle mass more than strength training.
The fifth and final benefit of strength training is that strength training improves your cognition or brain power in an amazing way. Studies have shown that in elderly people, the age-related cognitive decline, i.e., their brain power decreases with age, strength training helps a lot in that. Apart from that, strength training plays an amazing role in controlling many mental issues like fatigue, anxiety, depression, and high stress levels.
The most amazing thing that has been seen in studies related to all age groups, irrespective of sex, is that strength training greatly boosts your self-esteem and self-confidence. So, I hope the amazing benefits have been understood by you. Make sure to show these videos to your family members, to the elderly who have doubts about strength training, and many more information like this.
No comments:
Post a Comment