Strength training might make you think of busy gyms and muscular individuals pumping iron, but this is only one side of the coin.
For many, strength training is about getting the body moving, and this can be achieved easily within your own home. However, you might be a little reluctant to do so.
But knowing the benefits of training might be the final push you need to get into gear. Fortunately, this post explains three key benefits of strength training, as well as some tips to help you get started.
Enhanced Body Composition
Having a good body composition is a vital aspect of staying healthy, and strength training is an effective way to make effective changes.
Your body composition, which is used to describe the amount of bone, fat, and muscle in your body, can fluctuate throughout your life.
With more exercise, particularly training and weightlifting, your body becomes more efficient at converting fat into lean muscle, resulting in a more athletic physique.
Resistance training causes hypertrophy, otherwise known as the growth and strengthening of muscle fibers.
This happens as microscopic tears in the muscle fibers are repaired by the body, which makes them thicker and stronger.
Progressive overload is required to ensure the body is continuously adapting to the strain, leading to an increase in muscular hypertrophy.
If you wish to improve your body composition with strength training, then you must focus on compound exercises.
This includes bench presses, deadlifts, shoulder presses, and squats. Compound exercises work multiple muscles at once, but you should also supplement with isolation exercises as needed.
Improved Quality of Life
As well as enhancing body composition, strength training can change your quality of life for the better.
This is often the result of numerous benefits, from reducing the risk of falls through improved balance to building stronger bones and increasing metabolism. These benefits go a long way in ensuring your quality of life is boosted, particularly in the elderly.
The best way to improve your quality of life with the assistance of strength training is by choosing exercises that mimic everyday movements.
For example, while squats are similar to sitting down and standing up, farmer’s walks can help to build strength for carrying groceries or other items. These movements will maintain your independence as you get older.
As long as you incorporate strength training into your lifestyle consistently, you should begin to see the benefits within six to 12 weeks. This will be the case if you complete at least two training sessions per week and allow for a minimum of 48 hours of rest for each muscle group.
Boosted Cognitive Function
Finally, training also offers several benefits to your brain. It improves cognitive function by enhancing brain health through improved blood flow and reduced inflammation, increasing the production of growth factors, and promoting neuroplasticity.
All of these benefits result in improved executive function, memory, and processing speed, as well as protecting you from cognitive decline.
While the tips previously mentioned in this post can help with this, you should make an effort to vary your exercises, too.
Most individuals should stick with a workout plan for eight to 12 weeks to see the benefits, but this doesn’t mean you cannot use a mix of methods.
Completing bodyweight exercises, using resistance bands, and swapping between free weights and machines can improve your strength training experience.
To conclude, training is a popular way of staying physically active, but it offers a variety of benefits.
As outlined in this post, this form of exercise can enhance your body composition, improve your quality of life, and boost your cognitive function.
