Four Benefits of Strength Training

When you think of starting an exercise program for health, what’s the first thing that pops into your mind? Walking? Running? What about strength training? Strength training exercises like sit-ups, push-ups, curls and squats are just as important to overall health. Besides feeling stronger and having a toned appearance, there are several other reasons weight lifting is important for your health.

Balance: When your muscles are stronger, you may be less likely to fall because you will be able to maintain balance better. With stronger core muscles and back muscles you will be able to make the small imperceptible adjustments needed to stay upright in a slippery situation.

Stronger Bones: Weight bearing exercises like strength training are known to strengthen the bones by forcing them to deal with a little stress. This small amount of stress causes the bones to becomes stronger in anticipation of what will be asked of them in the future. Take heed that just the opposite it also true. If you are not stressing your bones they will not be strong enough when you need them to be.

Weight management: Muscles are a lot better at burning calories than fat tissue. So even when you are done with your workout, your increased muscle mass will mean you will be burning calories even when you’re done with your workout.

Heart: Not only can lifting weights give you a cardiovascular workout if you take minimal rests, but it can also improve your cholesterol profile and lower your blood pressure. Weight training can help lower your LDL ("bad") cholesterol and increase your HDL ("good") cholesterol which is important for cardiovascular health.

To gain these health benefits, muscle-strengthening activities need to be done to the point where it's hard for you to do another repetition without help. A repetition is one complete movement of an activity, like lifting a weight or doing a sit-up. Try to do 8—12 repetitions per activity (this counts as 1 set). Once you have mastered a whole set try doing two then increasing to three.