One day I was in the gym and was doing my usual things going heavy, working hard all in the name of strength training and getting stronger. But after I finished my workout I thought to myself, yes I do strength training because I want to get stronger but what really are all the benefits? So I did a little bit of research to find out the answer to my question.
The benefits of strength training include the obvious benefits of getting stronger, but did you know that strength training also helps your body burn calories faster. On top of that it also helps strengthen your bones, helps manage chronic conditions, enhance your body mechanics, increase mood and energy levels, and lowers your risk of injuries.
What Is Strength Training
To put it simply strength training is a form of resistance training, usually using some kind of weight like a dumbbell or a barbell where the main goal of the training is to get stronger.
But the reality of it is that strength training can range from a number of different types.
- Bodyweight exercise – This is just exercise where you use the weight of your own body to provide the resistance for the movement. Think push ups, pull ups, chin ups, squats, and lunges, there are a lot more but these are just some of the more popular movements.
- Free weights – Free weights are just weights/equipment that is not connected to something else whether that be a machine or the floor. Some examples of free weights are dumbbells, barbells, medicine balls, and weight plates.
- Machines – These are just machines which have pre pre-set weight you can choose from to better adjust to your fitness level.
Here Are The 9 Benefits You Will See From Strength Training
- You Will Get Stronger
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first, it is literally in the name yes doing strength training will get you stronger. But in saying that getting stronger is sometimes undervalued in my opinion, as most people when they think strong they say how much can you lift bench or squat. But getting stronger will just help with everyday life, as getting stronger makes everyday tasks like mowing the lawn, grabbing the groceries, and laundry just easier.
- Your Body Burns Calories Faster
Through strength training your body will burn more calories, and this will happen in two different ways.
The first one being that though you are training for strength and not muscle hypertrophy you will still gain a lot of muscle through strength training. Through the extra muscle you would have put on through your strength training your body will even burn more calories even at rest.
The other reason why you will burn more calories through strength training is that for up to 72 hours after your strength training session you will have a higher metabolic rate, aka after a great strength training session your body will burn more calories even at rest.
- You Will Get Stronger Bones
Your bones will get stronger when you do strength training, which is great because your bones are just harder to break.
On top of that though it does not seem like much right at this moment but as we age naturally your bones will get weaker, and it has been shown that even 2, 30 minute sessions per week was enough to drastically slow down these effects.
As a bonus this also applies to your muscles, where naturally as we age muscle mass will go lower and strength training will help slow down this muscle loss.
- Helps Manage Your Chronic Conditions
Something that is very unknown is that strength training also helps manage many different chronic conditions. Some being neuromuscular disorders, HIV, pulmonary disease and even some cancers.
On top of that, strength training has helped over 30 million AMericans with type 2 diabetes live a healthier lifestyle due to strength training’s effect on glucose control.
- Enhance Your Body Mechanics
Though strength training might get a bad rap, where most people think it is just me lifting heavy things. But strength training has also been shown to improve body mechanics such as better balance, coordination, and even posture.
There was a review from 2017 that only one strength training session per week not only increased muscle strength and muscle mass, but also had a 58 percent increase in functional capacity in older adults.
- Increase Mood & Energy Levels
It is known that all exercise boosts endorphins (the happiness chemical in your brain), but more than that strength training will have further positive effects on your brain.
To add on to this it was also shown that strength training has also been shown to improve a person’s sleep quality, and a higher sleep quality has been shown to further increase mood.
- Lowers Risk Of Injuries
Doing some kind of strength training has also been proven to lower your risk of injury. This is because not only has strength training been proven to increase someone’s flexibility, but it also helps reinforce joints like the knees and ankles.
- Increased Flexibility & Mobility
Most people when they think of strength athletes think that they are strong but stiff as a board, but actually strength athletes are far more flexible than the average human.
This is because they are training many of their muscles not only under very heavy load, but training them in very large ranges of motion.
- Sense Of Accomplishment
Achieving the goals you have set in the strength training world is one of the greatest feelings in the world.
Slowly progressing to the 100kg bench or even just trying to bench the bar, working your way up 2.5kg at a time and finally getting there is a great feeling. And though progress is still slow, progress is often far quicker than having the aim to solely gain muscle.
These little bits of progress can act as small little motivational hits so you can keep going, and going hard because you are seeing progress though slowly.
One last one on this, stick to what you can do. I understand that you want to lift the numbers of the people you see on social media, but realize they are the 0.1 percent and it took them so many years of constant hard work to get there.
Conclusion
To sum it up, strength training is amazing for so many people, because not only do you get stronger from strength training, but it also gives so many more benefits. With them being your body will burn more calories, you will get stronger bones, it helps you manage chronic disease, it will better your body mechanics, it will increase mood and energy levels, it lower the risk of injury, it will increase your flexibility, and also it will give you a sense of accomplishment.
So if you want to even get some of the many benefits listed above I think that strength training might be the right fit for you.