The Benefits of Strength Training
Year round, day or night, awake or
sleeping, your body’s muscles are working.
Strength training is the process of exercising this muscular system with
weighted resistance. Developing a
safe, efficient and effective strength training program is one of the four
essential elements of optimal health. (strength training, cardiovascular
training, nutrition/weight management and flexibility training.)
We produce strength through
muscle contraction. The contraction
attempts to shorten the muscle. This
shortening / movement, or lack there of, depends on the relationship between
muscular forces and resistive forces. Many
factors affect this contraction performance.
The factors include: gender,
age, limb length, muscle length, tendon insertion, muscle fiber type, and motor
learning. These factors do not
cause you to become unable to have positive gains from a strength training
program. Positive affects of
strength training have been shown to occur at any age, gender, limb length, etc.
Below is a list of some of the benefits you will gain from an effective
strength training program.
| Increased
muscle fiber strength and size. |
| Increased
tendon, bone, and ligament tensile strength. |
| Decreased
risk of injury. |
| Increased
metabolic rate. |
| Profound
influence on physical capacity and physical appearance. |
Unless we perform regular
strength exercises, we lose up to ˝ pound of muscle every year after age 25.
This gradual decrease in lean muscle tissue means that non-training
adults will experience ˝ percent reduction in metabolic rate each year.
This decrease in muscle tissue causes a corresponding decrease in
metabolic rate, but the good news is that an increase in muscle tissue will also
cause a corresponding increase in our metabolic rate.
Fight the sedentary aging
process with a regular strength training program and reap the many positive
benefits it has to offer.
Make it a Healthy Day
By Amy Bomar