9 Reasons Why Weight Training Is Good For Your Health

If you still associate lifting weights with the idea of becoming muscle bound and bulky, it’s time to get up to date on the benefits of resistance training. Here are 10 amazing health benefits of pushing weights.

1. Weight lifting consumes a whole lot of calories
Forget cardio – the way to burn calories like crazy is to hit the weights. Don’t believe it? Try 3 sets of 15 reps on the squat and you’ll be a believer for life. Compound movements that work multiple body-parts together will tax your cardiovascular system while shaping and sculpting your body.

2. Weight lifting boosts your metabolism
When you lift weights, you induce what is known as the excess post-exercise oxygen consumption effect (EPOC). Basically, this means that you’re not only going to churn through a heap of calories while lifting, but your metabolism is going to be boosted for the next 24-48 hours, allowing you burn more calories after your training – yes, even in your sleep! Also, when you work with weights, you are actually creating micro-tears in your muscle cells. Repairing those tears takes energy. And there’s more – muscle takes five times as much energy to maintain as fat does. So, every ounce of muscle that you add through weight training is going to have you burning more energy to maintain what you’ve got.

3. Weight lifting makes you strong
Not just exercise specific strong. The type of weight training that you’ll be undertaking with weights will make you functionally strong. They will make it easier for you to go about all of your daily tasks - with plenty left in the tank for emergencies.

4. Weight lifting will improve your cardiovascular fitness
When you perform exercises that recruit multiple muscle groups such as squats for reps, your blood is shunted all around your body. This makes your heart work a whole lot more efficiently. As a result of weight training, you will be less susceptible to heart disease, diabetes and a whole shopping list of other cardiovascular illnesses.

5. Weight lifting builds muscle
Muscle weights five times more than fat does. Just to maintain that muscle takes a lot of calories. Of course, muscle is also what gives your body its shape. Muscle looks good. It gives you curves. Muscle becomes increasingly important as we get older. Once we advance past the half century, we have a natural decline of from 5 to 10% of muscle mass every decade. As a result, we lose strength. Working out with weights will counter that natural loss, allowing us to combat many of the ailments that are traditionally associated with ageing.

6. Weight lifting boosts you endurance
When you work out with weights, your muscles develop both their fast twitch and their slow twitch fibers. The composite effect of this is that they get stronger and they develop endurance, allowing them to do more for longer. In addition, when you use such equipment as kettle-bells, you develop functional fitness, which makes it easier for you to carry out your everyday physical activities.

7. Weight lifting allows you to burn fat
While you can’t spot reduce, weight training will allow you to tighten and firm muscle all over your body while systematically stripping fat from all over your frame. The result is that your scale weight may not change a whole lot (remember that muscle weights five times more than fat does) but you will look a whole lot better.

8. Weight lifting increases bone density
When you exercise with weights, your chances of developing osteoporosis declines dramatically. Weight training also strengthens your joints. A recent study out of Tufts University showed that resistance training acts to slow down bone loss while stimulating new bone growth. The study also showed that regular weight training lubricates the joints as well as making the muscles around the joint stronger. As millions of people can attest, the effect is a reduction in arthritic symptoms.

9. Weight lifting develops inner qualities
Weight lifting calls on all of the inner qualities that mark successful people. The regularity of training, the commitment and the sheer guts required to push beyond your physical barriers will require self discipline, focus and pure grit. In the process you’ll learn to become a goal setter and a ‘just do it’ kinda’ person. In fact, studies show that regular resistance training gives all of the benefits of taking anti-depressant medication – without any of the side effects. 

Hopefully any aversion you had to lifting the weights have, by now, been well and truly dispelled. Plan now to add weight training to your routine.  Combine it with cardio to turbo charge your results.