To clarify, lifting weights is not always lifting extreme weights like a powerlifter or strongman.
Their actually the minority…
For most of us average working adults…
Lifting weights is challenging your muscles with what your body can currently do...
Then gradually increasing the resistance or weight you lift as your body gets stronger.
Simple!
Here are the major benefits of lifting weights.
- Fitness goals
- Physical health
- Mental Health
- Injury prevention
- Quality of life
1.Fitness Goals
Get toned or gain muscle
- This is obvious if you want to get buff like a bodybuilder
- But even if want to get toned(for the ladies) or muscular lean(like Brad Pitt in 'fight club' for the guys) you need to lift weights
- Your muscles give you the shape you want
Weight/Fat Loss
- Sure you can lose weight by doing cardio and starving yourself (like a juice cleanse)
- But your body gets used to this and you will either:
- have to keep adding more cardio
- eat less and less
- and they aren’t sustainable.. you will inevitably gain your weight back
- Lifting weights helps increase your metabolism vs. endless cardio and starving yourself
If you don't have an urgent goal like weight loss or getting shredded to look good..
Improving your health is reason enough to make lifting weights a part of your life.
2.Physical Health
According to Dr. Peter Attia this are the most common disease that cause death: heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and type 2 diabetes
Without diving too deep into each, according to Dr. Rhonda Patrick exercise helps with:
- Heart disease - by reducing blood pressure, elevating HDL levels, and diminishing inflammation
- Cancer and type 2 diabetes - by curbing insulin, reducing inflammation, boosting the immune system, insulin sensitivity, and improving digestion
Some of these benefits come from cardio or higher intensity exercise, BUT strengthening muscles and soft tissue like tendons helps you continue cardio and high intensity exercise longterm
3.Mental Health
- If your body and brain are healthy, you have more energy, you FEEL better, and you can worry less about health issues
- Lifting weights helps reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38710640/ )
- Exercise helps release the “feel good” chemical in your brain (they act as antidepressants, improving mood and reducing anxiety)
- Myokines (also coined “hope molecules”) are released from the muscle that travel to the brain for antidepressant properties
*Disclaimer - exercise can help with symptoms of mental and emotional conditions, but we're not suggesting it's a cure. Please speak with a medical professional to use exercise in addition to therapy, medicine or other necessary tools.
4.Injury prevention
Injuries can happen from weakness and tightness in your body.
Exercise with proper technique is like practicing how to move well for daily movements.
Even if exercises aren't exactly like daily movements, they helps strengthen muscle and soft tissue to reinforce your body for unpredictables movements.
Regular strength exercise, enough sleep and a balanced diet reduces simple injuries like "throwing out your back from picking up a pen"...
But you're less likely to have those aches and pains older folks complain about.
This is especially important as your body ages.
5.Quality of life
Combine the list above and you improve your quality of life
- Reduce risk of injury
- Help manage stress (which is a part of life)
- Improve mental and physical health to reduce unnecessary obstacles
- Achieve goals and milestones for your health but to build confidence, discipline and kick ass in life!
This benefits seem to target preventing disease and looking good, but what if you're relatively healthy?
Your yearly blood work can show 'normal'
You look the same as last year (maybe a bit fluffier?)
You can walk, carry things, and go about your day just fine..
The uncomfortable truth? Your body is slowly getting weaker if you're not making it stronger.
Your body doesn't break down the moment you turn 50 or 60, it's changing day by day.
Where do you go from here?
Start with a simple program like this Strength Training 101
Or click the button below to start investing in your strength!
