Benefits of Lifting Heavyweights
-Increased Strength
-Muscle Growth/Toning
-Improved Bone Density
-Healthier Joints
-Cardiovascular Fitness
-Fat Loss (assuming diet is in check)
The important thing to remember when training for strength, size, or fat loss is that there are no “magic exercises” that will get you the results you want. The key factors are intensity, consistency, and progressively overloading your body with new challenges to trigger adaptation.
However, if choosing between exercises there are some basic principles to adhere to. I’ve created this brief guide on exercise selection so you can continue making rapid progress! Strength – What it does for us: Strength allows us to manipulate our environment. We use it every day of our lives to help us move objects around, to get through life without injury, and to enjoy a high quality of life.
Strength is a great indicator of health and it’s been proven that improvements in strength can also lead to improved endurance performance. Improvements in strength due to resistance training have been shown to increase bone density, reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes, lower insulin levels and increase fat loss when combined with healthy nutritional practices.
How do we build it:
1) Lift heavy things:
Lifting heavy things(80-95%+ 1RM) will make you stronger by causing microtrauma (microscopic tears) within the muscle tissue which allows your body to adapt and repair these tears by building bigger muscles! With respect to skeletal muscle, a long-term increase in functional strength can be achieved by focusing on approximately 4-8 repetitions.
2) lift those heavy things often :
Once you’ve built a base level of strength, it’s important to continue challenging your body with that same stressor over and over again (progressive overload). The only way that we will continue to create positive adaptations and avoid adaptation stagnation is if we keep adding weight/reps/sets etc.
Strength doesn’t just come from what you do in the gym, dedicating time outside of the gym to practice your sport or activity is one of the best ways to build strength. If performing a 1 rep max is not possible due to lack of experience or skill, I recommend estimating a 3RM for compound movements and a 10RM for accessory movements to get a gauge of your strength.
3) Train at the right intensity :
For most people, going too heavy will result in very uncomfortable training sessions. It’s important to create a level of discomfort within the muscle, but not so much that you can’t complete the desired amount of repetitions with good form.
Benefits of lifting heavyweights:
1. It increases your basal metabolic rate. This is the amount of energy expended while at rest in a neutrally temperate environment, and it’s directly related to the amount of lean muscle mass you have. The more muscle you have, the higher your BMR and the more fat you’ll burn all day long even while sitting on your ass! You can increase this by putting on some quality mass.
2. It prevents age-related muscle loss if done properly. There are many natural processes within the human body that start as soon as puberty ends that make building new muscle increasingly difficult over time.
Benefits of lifting heavy weights low reps:
1. Improved neurological efficiency. Your central nervous system (CNS) is composed of two functionally opposite motor neurons that essentially govern all voluntary movement. Lifting super-heavy weights with low reps conditions your CNS to fire your motor neurons more efficiently, which enables you to recruit high threshold muscle fibers earlier in the set and makes it possible for you to handle heavier weight during future workouts.
2. It produces more force than lifting lighter weights. Most gym rats train with loads that are about 60 percent of what they can actually lift if they were fresh, so their strength gains are limited at best. The truth is, everyone knows someone who benches 225 yet can barely curl 100 lbs. because he’s not doing enough heavy lifting! If you want maximal strength gains, you need to train with more than 60% of your one-rep max.
3. It reduces post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). This is the amount of energy expended after any given exercise. The higher your EPOC, the more fat you’ll burn during and after your workouts. High-intensity weight training causes such a high EPOC that it can often double the number of calories you burn in a day, even when you’re just sitting on your ass!
Importance of weight training as we age:
The thing people don’t realize about post-menopausal women is that they have very little testosterone. The hormone estrogen, on the other hand, increases during this period. This causes a couple of things to happen: First, it makes it very difficult to gain muscle mass; and second, it gives rise to stubborn fat storage.
This is why many women find themselves over 40 gaining weight in their hips and thighs even though they’re doing everything right diet-wise it’s not due to overeating or lack of exercise (although both can exacerbate the problem); rather, estrogen levels are setting off mechanisms for fat storage where you don’t want it deposited.
Benefits of lifting weights male:
1. It increases muscle mass, which in turn raises your metabolism so you burn more calories throughout the day.
2. It reduces body fat levels because of increased metabolism and loss of subcutaneous fluid that occurs with progressive resistance training due to enhanced protein synthesis.
3. Resistance exercise improves insulin action independent of changes in glucose uptake or glycemic control, thereby decreasing fasting plasma glucose concentrations and improving oral glucose tolerance after weight loss. This has implications for the prevention and management of type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
4. Resistance exercise prevents osteoporosis and enhances other benefits of estrogen in women.
5. Weight training increases bone density, which leads to a lower risk for incidence of fracture later in life.
6. Increased lean body mass from training leads to a higher resting metabolic rate (RMR) so you burn more calories throughout the day. This is especially true during your rest periods between sets when you’re just sitting there watching TV or listening to music, you’re burning far more calories than most people realize!
7. It reduces body fat levels because of increased metabolism and loss of subcutaneous fluid that occurs with progressive resistance training due to enhanced protein synthesis.
8. Resistance exercise decreases depression symptoms by affecting neurotransmitters that influence mood.
9. Resistance exercise improves insulin action independent of changes in glucose uptake or glycemic control, thereby decreasing fasting plasma glucose concentrations and improving oral glucose tolerance after weight loss. This has implications for the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
10. It increases bone density which leads to a lower risk for incidence of fracture later in life.
11. Increased lean body mass from training leads to a higher resting metabolic rate (RMR) so you burn more calories throughout the day. This is especially true during your rest periods between sets—when you’re just sitting there watching TV or listening to music, you’re burning far more calories than most people realize!
Benefits of lifting weights every day:
1. Lifting weights creates stronger muscles, which elevates your daily calorie expenditure even at rest.
2. As you age, muscle mass naturally diminishes, so weight training helps combat that tendency and can contribute to a longer life span.
3. When you lift weights regularly and intensely, not only do you burn more calories while exercising—you continue to burn extra calories for hours afterward as well (this is known as EPOC).
4. You’ll enhance your body’s insulin sensitivity; weight training increases the concentration of GLUT-4 receptors in the muscles, and these help improve glucose uptake by cells where it’s needed most (i.e., muscle tissue). If there are more GLUT-4 receptors present on skeletal muscle cells, insulin is able to transport more glucose into the muscle cells.
5. You’ll reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes by improving your body’s ability to handle blood sugar efficiently. This means that if you’re pre-diabetic or diabetic, weight training can help get rid of (or at least lessen) those annoying symptoms.
6. Resistance exercise also reduces the risk of osteoporosis in both men and women later in life.
7. Weight training can improve heart health by strengthening the artery walls so they’re less prone to damage from everyday errant behaviors like smoking, drinking too much alcohol, lack of sleep, etc., which in turn reduces your risk for heart attack or stroke.
8. It’s important to note that while you do want to increase your level of physical activity, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests combining aerobic exercise with resistance training at least two times a week for optimal health benefits.
9. Resistance training is just as important for both sexes when it comes to fighting off sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss).
10. It increases bone density which leads to a lower risk for incidence of fracture later in life.
11. More lean body mass means higher resting metabolism, further increasing the calories you burn every day and therefore more weight loss over time even when you’re not exercising!
Benefits of lifting weights female:
1. In women, the addition of resistance training to a diet program has been shown to preserve and enhance fat-free mass, i.e., muscle tissue, which is crucial for supporting metabolism.
2. Resistance training helps develop lean body mass which increases your daily calorie consumption without adding unwanted fat weight—and it’s this lean tissue that plays a key role in improving the way your body uses insulin as you age.
3. It can reverse sarcopenia (age-related loss of lean tissue). A study published in the journal The Physician and Sportsmedicine showed that when women aged 50–75 years old lifted weights three times weekly, they had an increase in strength as well as lean body mass. Strength gains ranged from 20 to 150 percent—a dramatic improvement.
4. Women who lift weights regularly have lower triglyceride levels and increased bone-mineral density which results in better protection against osteoporosis.
5. It reduces the risk of injury because strong muscles are less prone to damage or tearing, especially as you age when muscle strength naturally diminishes without resistance training to counteract it.