I have many clients that come and see me that want to lose weight fast but don’t know how. They have tried dieting, aerobic exercise, even tried many of the fad exercise weight loss programs that they saw on television. Nothing seems to work. The bottom line is you have you overload your muscles and challenge yourself to lose weight. Most women fear lifting weights in that they think that they are going to become bigger or injure themselves in the process. If done correctly strength training is the safest mode of exercise out there. When you try and get fancy and challenge yourself beyond what you are capable of doing is when you can get injured. Men want to lift heavy but get caught up in a rut after doing so, most likely because of their exercise choices. Older men who have desk jobs and low energy think they will hurt themselves and so they avoid it all together.
Strength training challenges you both mentally and physically. When you can squat, bench press or even do 10 chin ups will boost your self confidence, make you feel good about yourself and will keep you young, even as you age. There are so many benefits to strength training that I will touch upon a few that I feel will want to make you pick up weights and question why didn’t I do this sooner!
1. Weight training will help you lose fat! The bottom line is more muscle means more calories burned during rest! With all the different fads that are on the market, nothing can match old style strength training. Where most people fail is they don’t push themselves hard enough to gain a metabolic effect during recovery. For instance , a large review of published research shows that weight training has an average loss of approximately 1.7 kg of fat in both normal and overweight individuals while preserving both their lean body mass and metabolic rate[1].
2. Strength Training decreases blood pressure and improves heart function! Weight training dramatically improves heart function. it repeatedly has been shown to decrease blood pressure. A review found that across 8 trials, systolic blood pressure decreased by an average of 6.2mmhg. This shows clinical significance since it is more than double the benefit of typical blood pressure medications[2]
3. Strength Training improves sleep and reduces chronic pain! A recent intervention showed that older men improved their quality of sleep by 5% and woke up fewer times during the night. Research has shown that sleep disturbance, not getting quality rest and losing out on deep REM sleep can influence glycemic control, diabetes risk, body fat gain and inflammation.
4. Lifting heavy can help build bone! Weight training more than any other activity helps to build bone mass and density. Studies show former elite athletes who included weight lifting as part of their workouts have much stronger bones as they age. This translates into a 50% lower chance of fracture in men, and 20% lower fracture risk in women.
To build bone you want a program design that emphasizes hypertrophy and strength ranges. This means lifting at times near maximal loads, doing plyometrics and even wearing a vest! For hypertrohy stay in a rep range of 8-12 reps and near 75% of your max, while for strength gains do 6-8 reps near 85% of you max load.
5. Strength Training can help prevent disease, particularly cancer and diabetes! Many doctors who specialize in treating diabetes use diet and exercise, and research has shown that interval training is the most effective. Building muscle increases the muscles demand for glucose which pulls it out of the bloodstream, this contributes to better body composition and diabetes prevention.
Strength training has been shown to repeatedly to correlate to lower risk of a number of cancers, in particular breast cancer. Teen girls who weight train experience a greater reduction risk of breast cancer later in life. But the benefit for cancer prevention extends to women of all ages.
6. Strength training improves hormone levels and reproductive function! Strength training increases both testosterone and IGF-1 in men which correlates to leanness. In women building lean muscle has been shown to improve the metabolism of estrogen which in turn means lower risk of cancer and lower body fat!
