Weight Training Benefits
There are alot of weight training benefits that people need to understand because there is a big misconception, especially in the female population about what results they will achieve. Almost every women that I train stresses the point that they don’t want to get too big or muscular. The reality is that for the vast majority of them this will not happen no matter how strong they get. They simply do not have enough of the right hormones to make this happen. Whether you are weight training at home or weight training at the gym the same benefits can be seen.
Some weight training benefits are:
- increase in muscle mass
- improvement in posture
- injury prevention/rehabilitation
- increase bone density
- increase in insulin sensitivity
- increase in growth hormone-anti aging
Now lets get into each of these in a little more detail.
Increase in muscle mass- Weight training can cause dramatic increases in muscle mass and strength depending on what your goals are. This added size and strength is essential for helping people perform daily activities. Alot of my clients are shocked at the things they can do with relative ease once they have started weight training.
Improvement in posture- Bad posture is an epidemic in our society. This is caused mostly from working long hours at the computer and hunched over the desk. After time, the muscles in the front of the body become short and tight and the back muscles become long and weakened. This is a recipe for disaster and can cause back, shoulder and neck problems. Alot of these problems will go away once we start working to correct posture. Messages and chiropractic adjustments are not going to help if the muscle mass and strength is not there. I have rehabilitated countless clients that physiotherapists and chiropractors have failed to do.
Injury prevention/rehabilitation-Injury prevention is a very important benefit of weight training. Not only does it make the connective tissue stronger, but also, when done properly will bring the correct length/tension at the various joints. This results in a more stable, less prone to injury joint. Weight training is also important for rehabilitating an injury due to it’s ability to strengthen connective tissue and break up adhesions that may have developed. Performing repititions with an extremely slow eccentric >6 seconds is an excellent way to increase the time it takes to recover from an injury.
Increase in bone density-this is a very important benefit, especially for those who are getting older and are worried about osteoporosis and brittle bones. When you load the skeletal system with external forces such as during weight training, the connective tissue, and bones become more dense and strong.
Increase in Insulin Sensitivity-this is important for the protection against getting diabetes. Insulin sensitivity is the amount of insulin the pancreas produce per unit of glucose in the blood stream. Through diet and exercise I have helped people be normal who were once considered to be pre diabetic.
Increase in Growth Hormone-Anti Aging-properly designed weight training programs have the ability to raise growth hormone naturally. Growth hormone starts to decline after the age of 30 and it is no coincidence that this is also where we start to lose muscle mass at the rate of 1%/year. This is one of the reasons why people start to feel better once they start weight training.
Always remember, that to maximize the benefits of your program you must follow a proper weight training diet. For further information on weight training, check out the Winnipeg weight training section of this website.
