Any kind of strength training (resistance exercise) is essential to any fitness program, and it builds up muscle for greater physical fitness. Strength training can help you with weight management, increase your balance so as to decrease your risk of falling and decrease your risk of chronic diseases.
Kids should also be screened by a healthcare professional to earn the go-ahead for a strength training programme. And they should always train under close supervision, starting with bodyweight exercise or resistance tubing and, over time, progress to free weights or machine weights.
Strengthens Bones and Joints
For example, it can build muscle mass, which can in turn improve joint function and help to eliminate joint pain. In addition, muscles actually provide needed structural body stability so that a fall or fracture never has the opportunity to occur in the first place.
Activities that involve weight-bearing such as walking, jogging or running are usually the best forms of exercise for bones. But other forms of less forceful activity, such as seated Tai Chi or Yoga, could also be more beneficial.
But strength training can be beneficial for anyone, young or old, and careful progressive strength training can slow the ageing process, helping not only to gain muscle but also to delay the onset of weakness and frailty due to many chronic conditions. Aside from its mood-altering effects that bolster quality of life, progressive strength training can help to lower symptoms such as arthritis, back pain and heart disease – but only if you keep at it. If you’re testing the waters of weightlifting, it helps to consult with an experienced strength and conditioning trainer or a physical therapist for guidance in technique.
Reduces Risk of Injury
We inevitably lose muscle strength as we age. Falls and resulting fractures become more common – and so there is great benefit to embarking on routine strength training that slows this loss, while preserving muscle quantity and boosting mobility over the long term.
Strength training provides a better sense of balance, which lowers the risk of injury by strengthening the muscles, tendons and ligaments around the hip, for instance, or the knee. It might also strengthen a person’s capacity to make other life changes that result in avoided injuries in the future.
Researchers suggest that when starting strength training, it’s best to do it with a certified personal trainer or gym instructor who can demonstrate correct technique carefully and slowly so that the body can become accustomed to using muscles properly. From this starting point, it’s beneficial to begin with weights that allow eight to 12 repetitions of the move before they become too easy. These weights can then be gradually increased over days, weeks, months and years. Finally, it’s crucial to give your body enough time to stretch before beginning strength training sessions.
Helps Prevent Osteoporosis
Strength training may help decrease your risk of falls and fractures by increasing muscle mass in areas that can keep you on your feet and reduce your chances of falling, such as improving your legs and trunk strength, balance and mobility, making carrying heavy objects easier, as well as diminishing fatigue to complete life activities including moving furniture, hiking, playing sports, and getting up the stairs without interruption.
With resistance (strength) exercises, it’s the bone. Resistance, such as lifting weights, stresses the bone, causing its bone-building cells to respond by making your bone structure stronger. In doing so, current research suggests, resistance exercises can help reverse – or at least slow – bone density loss that comes with age, and reduce osteoporosis risk.
Anyone living with osteoporosis should be getting moderate-impact exercise at least a couple times a week – jumping rope or jogging, for example. Talk to your doctor before you begin any new exercise program or regimen.
Improves Balance and Mobility
Strength training increases muscle strength and mobility that help balance, posture, movement and lessen musculoskeletal injury or fall. In addition, strength training reduces bone fracture.
Muscles, meanwhile, get stronger and more toned with strength training and, by preventing sarcopenia, you can slow, if not reverse, the muscle atrophy that comes with age. Strength training makes daily activities such as climbing stairs or carrying grocery bags much easier as well.
In resistance training, your own body weight or some sort of aids to challenge your muscles, such as dumbbells, a barbell, or other sort of resistance bands, are used as resistance in order to develop muscle and strength. Strength-training experts encourage the approach of progressive overload where the intensity or resistance is increased gradually over time. Then, before you start a strength-training programme, it is suggested you get expert counsel whether this be from a personal trainer or physical therapist.
Helps Burn Calories
Strength training enhances weight loss by increasing muscle mass, and, in turn, speeding up your metabolism, while lowering your blood pressure and cholesterol levels – potentially reducing your risk for cardiovascular disease.
Too many of us think you have to lift crazy heavy stuff to stay slim when, in fact, lighter loads lifted more times than not, reaches the calorie-burning potential of lifting heavy for a relatively shorter amount of time per set.
Weight training, when done correctly, can also produce EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption), the effect where you continue to burn calories after you have stopped exercising. This is true for high-intensity weight training, including plyometrics, sprint interval training and, if you train with heavy weights and keep your rest periods short, strength training too.