Ok so resistance training or strength training brings up a vision of people lifting big heavy weights, usually accompanied by lots of grunting in the ‘weights area’. So is it really for everyone? Lets break down some benefits, and you can judge which may be of use to you….
Decreased Risk of Injury
This further breaks down in to a number of categories, firstly strength training decreases the risk of injury in other activities, such as running, cycling and swimming allowing you to perform to a higher level.
Developing strength (both muscular and skeletal) can help reduce the impact of falls as well as general aches and pains. We start to lose muscle from around 30 years old, strength training can offset this which leads into the next benefit:
Maintaining Muscle Tissue
When our hormones begin to decrease our muscle mass also decreases which in turn lowers our metabolism (our metabolism is governed by muscle mass) this decrease can be as much as 8-10% per decade! Strength training can offset this to around 1-2% and it doesn’t mean lifting super heavy weights, wearing a lifting belt and grunting is entirely optional.
Increased Strength
This one is fairly obvious, you’ll gain an increase in strength, this will make daily tasks easier whether that’s lifting things in and out of the car, gardening, or other manual day to day tasks.
Improved Bone Health
Strength training is directly linked to improving ligament and tendon strength, whilst also helping to develop stronger bones. These together can reduce the risk of developing osteoporosis, whilst also decreases the risk of fractures.
Controlled Body Fat
Muscle burns calories, in fact muscle burns around 3 times as many calories as fat does, so with a nice link back to the first benefit the more muscle we maintain the higher our metabolism will be. Strength training really is for everyone, long gone are days of the heavy weights area, we have developed a much more rounded understanding of how maintaining and building muscle supports an active and healthy lifestyle.
It doesn’t need to be heavy weights, doesn’t mean you’ll have to start bench pressing or deadlifting (although they are cool!) there are so many options, dumbbells, kettlebells and cable machines to name a few.
If you want to explore the use of strength/resistance training, give us a shout we can help with technique, program design or 1-2-1 sessions to help you get started and get stronger.