During the last few years, the opinion about weight lifting has evolved positively.
It seems now that most people are convinced by the fact that exercising, and more specifically lifting weights have many positive impacts on the human body.
But what are these impacts?
Weight lifting improves strength.
In fact, the human body is known to create adapatation to stress.
So when it is challenged by lifting more weight than previously, your tissues adapt and get stronger to prevent a future potential similar challenge.
If you use your body to lift more and more weight, you'll make it stronger.
Resistance training also burns calories.
Whereas it seems that cardio burns more calories, weight lifting shapes your body.
Building muscle mass also increases your RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) which means that if you practice strength training for long enough, your body at rest will burn more calories in the future.
A good investment.
It improves your balance.
Adults over 60 years old show 34% less falls if they have been training with weights in the past.
Weight training makes you work on your balance and the perception you have of your body in the space, it improves your proprioception.
It reduces risk of injury.
Weight lifting develops your muscle mass, burns calories and increases your proprioception but not only.
It also strengthens your ligaments and tendons.
A well designed program will make them stronger and so will decrease your risk of injury.
It improves cardio vascular system.
Not only cardio training has an impact on your cardio vascular system.
Strength training plays an important role too by decreasing your blood pressure, decreasing your 'bad' cholesterol and helping you manage your sugar levels.
It increases your range of motion.
ROM (Range Of Motion) stands for how far you can move or stretch a part of your body, such as a joint or a muscle.
When exercises are performed with a full ROM, it will increase it and also strengthens your joints, muscles, ligaments and tendons.
Performing full ROM will also emphases hypertrophy.
It increases self-esteem.
Resistance training does not only have physical impacts but also mental impacts.
Body performances, the fact that you will able to lift more and more weight increases self-esteem through progression.
Body appearance, seing the result of your work and achieving your physical goals will give you self-satisfaction and will contribute to self-esteem.
It increases bones strength.
Whereas few years ago there were some concerns about the impact of weight lifting on bones especially on youngsters, it is now clear that it improves bones condition.
Strength training reduces ostheoporosis, fractures and falls.
It has the same impact on teenagers without slowing their growth, it actually seems that weight lifting in early ages enhances testosterone production in the future.
However attention must be paid to the load used.
It reduces anxiety and increases mood.
Several studies testing different groups of people with high levels of anxiety showed that after weeks of trainings, the same people were feeling up to 20% less anxious.
An improvement that seems to be linked to self-esteem, feeling more capable of coping and goals achievement.
'Molecular changes in the lifters’ muscles and brain likely also occurred and contributed to improvements in their moods'.
It improves sleep quality.
23 000 adults in Germany got tested. They reported the amount of resistance training done in a week and how they felt about sleep.
Searchers noted that whenever excise has been done, there were less 'poor' or 'very poor' sleep.
This might be explained by Adenosine, a molecule that is broken down into ATP (Adenosine Tri Phosphate) to be used as energy. When ATP is naturally depleted through activity, it breaks back down into adenosine and at that point, tends to cause drowsiness.
Enough reasons to start or keep lifting weight and make sure you are improving your health.
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