Strength training can help you lose weight, increase your lean muscle mass and enhance your quality of life all while increasing your overall strength. Here are 5 reasons why including strength training, two or more days a week[i], is an important building block for a healthy body.
Enhance Your Cardio Performance
The benefits of cardio are undeniably important to your health and fitness, but you should consider incorporating strength training into your routine to help increase your performance. Strength training can increase your endurance, stability and mobility leading to better cardio performance. It can also help prevent injuries by developing and strengthening the muscles in your body, which will keep you running, cycling and climbing for the long haul.
Don’t Worry You Won’t ‘Bulk Up’ from working Out…Unless you want to!… (CLICK HERE for more)
Let’s put this common misconception to rest, shall we? Building muscle does not go hand-in-hand with bulking up. If you don’t want big bulky muscles from weight training, then you will not get them. In fact, to significantly increase muscle mass you must follow a specialized and intense workout routine and diet. Strength training will help you decrease your body, and since body fat has more volume than muscle you will actually look smaller. The bottom line, you won’t bulk-up and get big muscles unless you make a calculated effort to do so.
Strengthen Your Confidence
Weight lifting can strengthen your body as well as your self-confidence. With a little determination, commitment and proper form you can achieve results. Seeing yourself progress and change physically is an amazing feeling you are certain to feel great about. And…the compliments people give you are a nice bonus.
Stay Youthful
Living a happy and active lifestyle is presumably a primary goal of yours if you’re an avid Living Healthy reader. In order to keep your body up to speed with the activities you enjoy you have to keep your body strong.[ii] Maintaining your strength with a consistent strength training routine is essential to your current and future physical fitness.[iii]
How to Get Started with Strength Training – Take a Lift of Faith!
The idea of beginning a strength training routine with limited experience can be intimidating. The best way to make a smooth transition into your strength training program is to find a few basic exercises and plug them into your current gym routine. As you become more comfortable, take the time to learn a new exercise every week until you have a workload you are happy with.
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[i] This information was obtained from http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/guidelines/adults.html
[ii] This information was obtained from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7493203
[iii] This information was obtained from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3312297/
5 reasons you should be strength training…..
Great article. I hate hearing people say they forego weights out of fear of bulking up. EVERYBODY can benefit from some form of weightlifting, regardless of fitness goals.
I spend countless hours telling girls to lift weights and to not worry about bulking up, so thanks for sharing this. Even if someone is follow a muscle building plan; they do not wake up one day completely huge. Everyone is in control of their body.
La fitness is a great place to work out and the clubs are nice and clean
I have been a member of afew clubs up north and the diference is like night and day when it comes to LA fitness. The Gym is clean and the amenities are great for the ‘buck’.
Help!! I can’t afford $45 an hour for a personal trainer! Where do I start??
It isn’t going to get you in shape, make you toned, lose fat, or lose weight. It’s just going to make you a little bit better maybe improve your balance a bit. But if your aim is to lose fat, build muscle and look great, there is a far more effective solution to accomplishing this.pre-diabetics and those with Type 2 diabetes can actually improve their blood sugar readings by including strength training in their weekly workouts.Weight training makes your daily tasks easier. As you strength increases, you’ll see that opening tight lids or carrying heavy bags becomes easy.