Why You Should Be Interested in Regular Strength Training? 7 Objective Reasons
If you feel uneasy about the gym because you still have a vivid image of basement gyms with unpleasant people; or not basement, but a completely modern gym, but filled with people training their egos and vanity, posing in front of the mirror, taking photos, shaking a shaker, feeling superior to others, etc., then I send you greetings from 2024 – this is a stereotype as big as the US national debt.
Of course, there are those who will take off their pants in front of you, either to shit themselves on the spot, or not finding room for their libido during the next course, there are also those who crank up their self-admiration to the max, but you don't have to be like that. Even if they bite you, you won't turn into one if you don't want to.
Despite these downsides, you will mostly be among your own kind, because most people come to work out, spend time exercising and “get their blood pumping.”
“What do I need a gym for anyway, when I’m not into bodybuilding culture and I don’t have a goal of building muscle?” — still not infrequently from his new charges.
Strength training not only helps you lose weight without losing your health, but also takes your quality of life to a whole new level.
Now there are those who go to the gym, follow their favorite bloggers, rush after strength indicators, get upset if they do not progress or bench less than everyone else in their company, and there are those who do not do this at all and are not interested. Two extremes and no middle ground.
If I can make this gap – lovers of strength training, not striving for size, but clearly understanding why they need strength training – I will be happy.
So why do you need strength training if you don't need big muscles?
Physical health
There aren't many ways you can just go and improve your health. But there are some, and strength training is one of them!
The spectrum of the impact of strength training on health is impressive. There is both direct and indirect impact.
The main byproduct of strength training is muscle mass. – positively related with health biomarkers and life expectancy. It does this in a variety of ways.
Here is a disease – diabetes type II. And there are muscles that support insulin sensitivity, being one of the best preventatives against diabetesThe risks decrease as muscles develop.
Then there is coronary heart disease, the deadliest disease today. And then there is strength training, which improve cardiovascular healthsupporting our heart, preventing coronary heart disease. And strength training has nothing to do with it. no worse than cardio.
Chronic inflammation, which creates many problems, disrupting the normal functioning of many functions and systems of the body, also gives in to the forces.
The health of the musculoskeletal system is also largely is associated precisely with the presence of resistance training.
Mental health
Strength training has made its mark here too. In some cases, namely when there are mild to moderate depression symptoms, strength training works better than antidepressants.
Following the research data, 2 strength training sessions per week show “significant, clinically meaningful, large-scale reduction in depressive symptoms,” and the effect is felt after 8 weeks of classes. Moreover, the effect was observed even in those who had no problems with depression.
There is another studywhich also showed that you don't have to have mental disorders to benefit from strength training. After starting the training, the subjects improved their mental health and well-being indicators (the well-being index became higher) while being healthy according to these parameters. This means that strength training makes healthy people healthier.
Cognitive health
Strength training also provides numerous cognitive benefitsespecially in older people, due to the reduction of neuroinflammation and the increase in the secretion of brain-derived neurotrophic factors.
All of the above health benefits can be achieved by 30-60 minutes of strength training per week.
The quality of life
What is the cost of quality of life? Let's look at the example of taxes. It is very indicative.
Let's say we're Canadians and we care about where our taxes go. We look at the health care section and see that $3 billion is spent on treating the aftermath of a hip fracture (and more). That's a lot!
Such is the annual economic burden of low muscle strength that accounts for 2.2% of all disease expenditures in Canada in 2021. We, Canadians, don't like it. There are many more serious diseases! And this!? How to fix it? As the Canadians themselves (from the ministry) say, all we need to do is reduce the prevalence of low grip strength (a universal indicator of muscle strength and functionality) by just 10%, which will save $546 million every year. (If you still don’t understand what I’m getting at, this can also be treated with strength training).
And if we were British, we would be even more shocked, since, according to our own estimates, They spend 4.4-5.5 billion annually. pounds for utilities and social services related to people with disabilities, as well as for replacement of hip and knee joints in osteoarthritis and fragility fractures due to osteoporosis. (The main causes of these diseases are weak muscles and low bone density due to low mobility).
Besides the money, it’s just unpleasant and inconvenient. Imagine that you’re holding something in your hands and you drop it. What will you do? Elementary, bend over to pick it up. If necessary, lean on one knee. Now imagine that not everyone (and perhaps you in the future) can afford this. According to US data, back in 2008, about 16-18% of women and 8-10% of men aged 65+ cannot kneel down or even lift a weight of 5 kg without additional support (FIFoA-R 2008).
And the reason for this is – age-related sarcopenia. The most underestimated disease. It is the loss of muscle mass and muscle strength with age, which starts around 20 and continues throughout lifeYes, we all age, but that doesn’t mean sarcopenia can’t be beaten.
Scientists used to think it just happened. You get older = you lose muscle. But today there is a large amount of datawhich show that muscle loss is occurring not due to age as such, but due to a sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition. Basically, with age, people use muscles less and less. And since this is an adaptive organ, when not needed, their number decreases. Against the background of protein malnutrition, everything becomes really sad.
And the security forces can do a WHOOSH.
In this study There was no difference in muscle growth and strength between participants aged 18-39. The 39 year old body showed the same response as the 18 year old.
Another studye, conducted among athletes, did not reveal a significant loss of lean body mass or strength from the ages of 40 to 81(!!) in people who continued to play sports.
Conclusion: if you train, your muscles don’t go away.
Weak muscles also affect our feelings. Weakness, low energy, rapid fatigue – all these are direct consequences of exhausted muscles. And regular exercise literally slows down aging, almost completely blurring the differences in self-perception at 40-60 and sometimes at 80 years old.
“I feel like I’m young again” — is such a common response among those who exercise regularly that sometimes I feel like I’m in a time machine.
Knowing that your “effective age” is not limited by a conventional age limit, but rather depends largely on your decisions and actions, is very inspiring. We decide for ourselves how we will age.
Traumatism
Of course, even on the path to the best, not everything goes smoothly. Injuries happen during training. And that same “weight lifting” scares off even those who are potentially interested.
If you don't intentionally hit your head with dumbbells or break your butt chasing weights, then strength training is one of the safest types of high-intensity activity. According to statistics, training with weights leads to 1-2 injuries per year or 2-4 injuries per 1000 hours of training.
For example, if instead of “these weights” you decide what will happen “It's better to play football”here the risk of injury increases at least 4 times. There the number of injuries can reach up to 81 for every 1000 hours of trainingwhich is already 20 times more frequent than in power ones.
For beginning runners, the rate is 33 injuries per 1,000 hours.
Technique, adequate loads without forcing, a reasonable approach and strength are again off the charts in profitability in another parameter.
Availability
Running probably comes to mind right away. It's all about accessibility. Get up, put on your shoes, run. If you judge by this parameter alone, then yes. But what if your knees hurt? Or you have problems with your spine?
Not all of us are 100% healthy. The truth of life is that by the age when you start to feel a lack of energy, think about your health and start looking for something to do to increase your stamina, you come with a certain set of ailments. The main roles are played by: joints, lumbar spine, excess weight and many others. They were directed by Mistakes of Youth, and the script was written by Indifference. Now you decide to pull yourself together, but you can’t move normally. Now it grabs you here, now there.
And here again, strength training stands out from other classes. Understanding the problem and correctly selected exercise sets help to get all the benefits of training, avoiding weak points. Most of the most common problems can be taken into account in the training plan. And the loads are easy to adjust by the weight of the projectile, the range is from pink dumbbells to the heaviest barbells.
They value time
If we were to derive a coefficient that would show the amount of benefit per unit of time, then strength training would definitely surpass all available types of activity.
As they calculated in UK's Office for National Statistics “30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week, done 52 weeks per year, is associated with an additional 0.010677 years of life.”.
So, every hour of training gives 3.6 hours of life, which is equal to an investment with a 260% profit. (at least starting from zero to 2-5 hours per week).
Moreover, this is not just an increase in the length of stay, but also the preservation of the quality of life, sometimes in no way inferior to the quality of life in middle age. In essence, it is an extension of youth. This is not to mention well-being and appearance.
In 30-60 minutes a week you will receive:
Development of the cardiovascular system, as in cardio;
Strengthening the musculoskeletal system, as with its targeted development;
Flexibility and mobility, like in stretching (yes, I didn’t write about this in the text, Strength training and stretching are equally effective in developing joint mobility and improving flexibility );
Functionality as after functional training (I didn’t mention this separately either, but the power ones are just as functional);
The ability to direct the load precisely, obtaining the necessary advantages and avoiding weak points;
All this at a low cost of injury;
With maximum benefit for all health parameters;
And as a bonus you get muscles and the look that most people are not indifferent to.
With all this in mind, why aren't you training yet?
I am informing you, and it is up to you to decide what to do with this information (although I would like you to obey me unquestioningly and all go to training).
And if you decide to act, I'm waiting for you yourself in the TG channelwhere I share tools on how to live a healthy lifestyle in the most rational way, how to form a healthy and reasonable approach to strength training, making it effective.
