Benefits Of Weight Training Programs

Weight training refers to exercises that increase the body's strength and grow muscle mass. It is significantly different from weight lifting, body building, etc as these are sports. Weight training is the exercise that builds the strength to perform these sports. Whether you're looking to tone your body or get rid of excess weight or straight up build muscle mass, weight training is the number 1 recommendation. The reason for this is that weight training is not just for professional body builders, athletes and wrestlers, its benefits are for all who practice it. Let's explore some of these benefits;

1. Increase in Muscle Mass: well planned and consistently followed weight training plans increase the body's muscle mass and strength. On the other hand, endurance exercises like cardio fail to build muscle mass or increase the body's strength to a significantly noticeable level. Cardio workouts do strengthen the body's strength, but their focus is more on realizing the body's full capacity rather than increasing the body's capacity. Research has shown that a basic weight training program 25 minutes in duration, followed three times a week, can increase muscle mass by about 1 kg over an eight ¬week period. Lean mass gains of 20% of the starting body weight are common after the first year of training.

2. Stronger Muscles and Tendons: weight training improves the strength of tendons and ligaments. In turn, there is improvement in the joints' stability. Not only this, weight training also stimulates the production of collagen in the tendons and ligaments which increases their structural strength.

3. Fighting Age-related Muscle Loss: muscle mass tends to depreciate and decrease as we grow older. The average adult looses about 2-3 kg of muscle mass every 10 years of life. Most of the muscle loss occurs in the Fast twitching (FT) muscles. Weight training helps to build muscle mass in the entre body, but particularly focuses on the FT muscles. Cardio workouts can't prevent this muscle loss because they don't build muscle in the first place.

4. Increased Bone density: weight training builds bone strength. It increases the protein and mineral content of the bones. Research has shown that bones that were subject to greater levels of stress exhibited greater levels of mineral content.

5. Increased Metabolism: weight training increases metabolism. The muscle tissue, even in its idle state burns about 17% more calories than fat cells do. This is because the muscle cells are inherently active. Since weight training builds muscle, the body's total metabolism also increases. Weight training also increases the resting metabolic rate-RMR. This is the energy required for tissue maintenance and normal body functions. Research has shown that adding 1.4 kg muscle increases the RMR by 7% and our daily calorie requirement by 15%. What this means is that, if your weight training, you're not only burning calories in the gym, your also burning calories when you're not in the gym.

6. Reduce Blood Pressure: research has shown the weight lifting, especially when combined with aerobic workouts, decreases both systolic as well as diastolic blood pressure.

Thus weight training is a great way to ensure a healthy life and physical fitness. Just make sure your physician thinks your body is ready for it, and you're all set to go.

• Matt Thompson
• 30/06/2009, 10:59 PM
• 0 Comments