Weight Training Does More Than Just Building Muscles
Weights stacked up against each other.
If someone told you that they had the answer to help you feel awesome, improve heart function, strengthen your bones, and get rid of excess weight, would you want to know more? Well, there are many studies that show how weight training can do all this and more.
Weight training is not just for building huge biceps and bulging thighs, although there are benefits to those as well. Weight training deals with resistance, whether that is by using weight machines, free weights, or even your own body weight. This type of exercise targets specific muscle groups and has been proven to do more than just gain muscle. According to mayoclinic.com weight training provides a stress to the muscles that causes them to adapt and get stronger.
Along with getting in shape are all the long term benefits such as improved heart function. Who doesn’t want their heart to last longer? In March 2019 Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise took a look at the exercise habits of almost 13,000 adults who did not have heart disease. The results: those who did at least one hour per week of weight training had a 40-70% lower risk of stroke or heart attack compared with those who did not. So when thinking of ways to improve or maintain a healthy heart, weight training can be the answer.
One of the biggest benefits of weight training that I have experienced is how good I feel after putting in lots of hard work. In the June issue of JAMA Psychiatry, the study’s authors came to this conclusion after examining the results of 33 randomized clinical trials involving more than 1,800 people. They found that people with mild to moderate depression who performed weight training two or more days a week saw “significant” reductions in their symptoms, compared with people who did not. The findings also suggested that resistance exercises may be even more beneficial for those with more severe depressive symptoms. Especially during this time when life is more stressful than normal, we could all benefit from being in a better mood.
In addition to the benefits that I have listed there are so many more to include and to discover. Some of those are: controlled blood sugar levels, lower injury risk, improved flexibility, improved posture, increased metabolism, and decreased inflammation. So if you are wanting to focus on better health look no further, weight lifting is where it is at.
