Why is strength training important?

Are you a person like me who resolves to lose a few extra pounds every year when a family vacation or a wedding is fast approaching? Do you want to give your best shot at firming up your sagging muscles and look amazing in a favourite old dress?

If you have been thinking of starting with just a cardio exercise schedule to achieve this and more, you must seriously give a thought to trying strength training or exercising with weights along with it. Though cardio exercises or aerobic exercises are one of the most propagated forms of exercises to increase the heart rate and metabolism that are important to shed fat, strength training helps you to gain muscles, improve balance, improve heart fitness, strengthen your bones and give your body a toned look.

It’s a myth that strength training makes women bulk up. High levels of estrogen in women make it difficult for women to bulk up. Bodybuilders have to go through rigorous training and maintain a protein rich diet to bulk up. Thus, if you think that only lifting a few weights a few days a week will make you bulk up like them, be rest assured that bodybuilding needs a lot more effort than this. So instead of worrying about this, let’s look at some of the benefits that strength training offers.

Shedding fat and maintaining weight loss: Strength training helps in replacing the fat loss by building lean body mass. This muscle gain helps your body to burn fat more efficiently and also helps in maintaining weight loss.

While performing cardio exercises, your body consumes oxygen proportionately to the amount of calories burnt, resulting in weight loss in the form of fat and water loss. Whereas, strength training results in afterburn as the proportion in which the calories are burnt and oxygen is consumed is not proportional. Hence, an oxygen debt is created which results in excess post-exercise oxygen consumption or EPOC. This helps in replenishing the body after the wear and tear post exercise in a resting state. Thus, calories are burnt even after you have completed your workout. The more intense the workout the more afterburn you experience. But, the exerted muscles require rest to repair themselves and hence, strength training of the same set of muscles should be done only after a day’s rest. Ideally, performing aerobic exercises and strength training on alternate days provides best results.

Preserving muscle mass and strengthen bones: As we age, your lean body mass depletes slowly and fat piles on. But strength training helps in preserving and enhancing muscle mass and keeps our body toned and fat gain at bay. Also, as we get older, hormonal changes result in loss of bone density that can put you at the risk of encountering osteoporosis and make the bones brittle. Whereas, regular strength training can slow the rate of bone deterioration and also help in strengthening bones by improving bone density.

Preventing and reducing blood pressure: Strength training exercises also help in improving the muscles of the heart because while during strenuous exercise our muscles required more blood and the heart needs to work extra hard to keep up with it. Thus, over time the muscles of our heart strengthen and its efficiency to beat blood goes higher.

Reducing back pain: Strength training exercises helps in strengthening the muscles that hold up your back bone and thus helps in reducing back pain.

Improving the ability to carry out everyday work better: Toning your muscles will not only improve the way you look but will also help you improve your posture, balance, flexibility and coordination. With the strength you gain, you can carry out your everyday chores easily. You can easily carry your groceries, pick up a heavy package, push your lawn mover, carry you young ones, etc.

If these aren’t good enough reasons for you to start strength training, one more of its benefits is that it acts as an anti-depressant as it increases the level of endorphin in your body and makes you feel happier. You feel energetic and fit. It also helps you sleep better and improves the overall quality of your life. So pack up your gym bag and get ready to pump some iron!