The Best Type of Exercise For All Bodies, Any Age, or Level, and It Isn’t Cardio!
Want to lose fat, get toned, and boost metabolism like crazy? Want to feel more confident, able-bodied, reduce stress, avoid sickness and long term disease?
If you’ve wondered, “what is the one thing I can do towards a better body and improved health”?, it is lifting weights. Strength Training via Weightlifting- Truly the apex of exercise and here’s why, how it benefits, and how you can get started!
This form of exercise can be done by anyone at any age, even those well into their golden years and it takes very little time to reap benfits!
Haven’t tried it? You are missing out my friend!
Don’t want to change your diet? No problem, just start a weightlifting routine. Through such exercise you will firm up and lose fat without the need to focus on diet change alone.
No time? No problem, all it takes is as little as 30 minutes a day, seriously!
Aside from the obvious benefits like sculpting a sexy, bodacious body, there are some major health benefits associated with weightlifting and you don’t have to be expert level! In this article I’ll give you the key benefits of lifting weights as well as the simple basics to get you started!
Another secret? Muscles burn calories and stored fat AT REST, when you’re not exercising! Crazy cool huh?
Here are some key benefits when we lift, push or pull weight around:
Good for your heart
Great for your bones
Better immunity and lower risk for disease
Boosted metabolism
Boost mentality naturally
Improved sleep
Built in confidence
Feel sexy and more in control
What makes lifting weights the best exercise over other forms of exercise?
Most who’ve made exercise part of their lives know by personal experience the many benefits associated with a great workout. To avoid many of the modern day health problems we face can all be reduced or completely eliminated if we make exercise a habit. Weight lifting is the game changer in combatting problems associated with aging, stress, hormone imbalance, immune disorders, many diseases and others such as insomnia and digestive irregularities.
What gives weight lifting a leg up in the world of exercise and fitness? Research has proven grip strength as a strong indicator of overall bodily health to name one.
“Research continues to link a decline in grip strength to a range of adverse health issues, including heart disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers” -uclahealth.org, who lists lifting weights as the top form of exercise for improved health.
“People who maintain their grip strength age more slowly. They stay healthier longer and are stronger throughout their bodies.” Dr. Ardeshir Hashmi, MD - health.clevelandclinic.org
Lifting weights puts stress on the various parts and structures (bones, ligaments, tissues, and muscles) of the body that other forms often hardly touch. Also, weight lifting’s versatility goes unmatched because it combines heart pumping, low-impact activity that builds muscle in a much shorter amount of time. Furthermore, studies prove that when people lift heavy weights, calories burned after a workout is doubled in comparison to any other form of exercise!
So what happens to our body when we strength train lifting weights?
When we lift weights our body responds by pumping blood faster to those muscles, there in, increasing flow through our heart. Everyone knows our heart health is a key factor to better overall health and if you didn’t know heart disease is our leading cause of death in the world. Yikes!
As for bones, strength training maintains and can actually increase bone density also reducing risk of osteoporosis.
Strength exercise increases our body’s natural immune function. Our body makes more white blood cells lifting weights so you can better avoid the common cold, flu and other bacterial infections and when we do get sick, our body fights harder from boosted immunity. As mentioned above research shows weight lifting exercise lowers our risk for disease such as heart disease, diabetes, athritis, dimentia and even cancer!
And who doesn’t want a faster metabolism?! I always tell everyone I advise and help train, don’t worry about your diet, start lifting weights! When we gain muscle our metabolism is faster then if we are to just reduce calories or try running off fat. More muscle = faster metabolism at rest, meaning when you’re not exercising! Imagine that! We wake up our nervous system as well which improves your bodies ability to digest food!
This type of exercise is great for your mental health. Not only will strength training improve your mind when you see how it changes your body (hello sexy arms), but it also, naturally, boosts mood and cognitive ability (goodbye brain fog)! We have a few chemicals and hormones that balance our bodies. The two primary ones impacted by strength training are serotonin and endorphines.
Serotonin’s function is complex but improves our ability to cope with stress and make us feel happy. It helps our nervous system opperate by better controling muscle function and how we move (better stability) and also influences our appetite and how our bowels work. Under stress our body releases endorphins which is our bodies natural pain killer. Strength training makes the endorphin’s effect last longer then normal and with better efficiency. These are the same hormones associated with laughter and sex.
We spend one third of our life sleeping or at least we’re suppose to. If you haven’t experienced a great nights’ sleep, go out and exhaust yourself physically. This is a sure fire way to your best sleep! Through bodily exertion we depleat our energy stores, tire our nervous system, which forces our body to rest in order to replenish itself. Since lifting weights requires us to use our entire musculoskeletal system, our body’s natural response is to repair by way of rest, in this case sleep. You will literally be made to sleep! A major take-away to lifting weights is that it requires only of fraction of the time to accomplish certain benefits like improved sleep, where other forms of exercise take much longer and can require more time out your day.
Another great thing about lifting weights?……
Strength training is very successful at reducing harmful stress and positively impacting our long-term mental health!
As author Duff says in his book “Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety”, if you don’t find a way to stress your nervous system with intention, stress will come out in negative ways….anxiety and panic attacks, unnamed fear, you get my drift. Our nervous system does amazing things for us and strength training is an incredible way to strengthen our body’s natural abilities including cell regeneration, anti aging as well as firm our legs, butt and arms…hello sexiness. It’s a sure fire way to both feel the benefits and see them.
What makes weight lifting work?
The key is to lift heavy weight. If you lift too light your muscles will not benefit except for some minimal calorie burn during your workout. By lifting heavy enough weight, putting stress on your muscles encourages cell regeneration creating plumpness and firming so you get the tone and definition you’re looking for. Hop on over to my article on shaping your best body for additional information and a workout plan that’s gotten me incredible results and what makes my workouts stand out from the rest.
THE MOST IMPORTANT thing when using heavier weight is to always do the exercise with PROPER FORM. Doing any exercise incorrectly can result in bad injury, tearing, or spraining joints or tendons which would cause a HUGE set back to your program. Watch videos to learn correct technique. I am currently putting together video tutorials for EVERY exercise I offer in my workouts so stay tuned!
Sounds wonderful right? Ready to get started? Let me give you four things to keep in mind:
Start slow
When you’re first starting, once you’ve been given the green light from your doctor, go at your own pace. If you’ve experienced injury or are not flexible take some time to start with low weight and just focus on the movement. There will be lots of muscles you’ve not used for awhile. Get to know your body and work on your range of motion. Proper form is absolutely essential. Before moving on to heavier weight, perform the exercises first so that your muscles become familiar with the movement.
Stretch
When we lift weights we are forcing our muscle fibers to repair themselves. When they heal, lactic acid builds up in them, this is when you feel tightness. Stretch every single day, even when you don’t lift weights. I have a super simple routine I like to follow. As you gain experience and feel more limber you will find the stretches that best suit you.
Focus on a muscle group
You have an upper body and lower body. Your upper body is your arms, chest and back. On your lower body you have your abdomen and legs. Your legs are super power houses being your butt (glutes) and your thighs, which are the quads (front leg) and hamstrings (back leg). Ideally, once you get going, you’ll want to focus on one or two muscle groups at a time, each day or workout. This way you can better increase the strength of that muscle group to its max. This will also ensure that “tone” most women are looking for. Don’t have every day to work on a muscle group? There is also circuit training which is working several muscle groups at a time and a great way to really get your heart pumping.
Drink plenty of water
Doing exercise inevitebly requires us to drink more water then we usually do because we sweat and our body needs the extra water to repair our musles. So never forget to drink water and more of it. It is a habit you’ll see me come back to all the time becasue it is so IMPORTANT! Aside from muscle repair we need it for all the systems in our body to funtion properly from our brain, to our digestion, to hair and nail growth!
So you may have heard women say things like, “I want to get toned and lean, but not bulky, lifting isn’t for me”, or “it isn’t necessary to life heavy”, or “I just get bigger when I lift”. I’m going to be absolutely blunt with you, statements like that are just not true. Here I’ll debunk a few common myths circulating since the beginning of women lifting weights:
Myth #1: Lifting weights will make me bulky.
No. Period. The women you have probably seen with hulk-like muscles have been lifting for a LONG TIME and it requires huge amounts of time in the gym. And, you would not believe the amount of food required to gain mass like that! I’m talking well over 3500 calories a day!
Myth #2: It will take too long to reap benefits like muscle tone.
Also a big fat NO, no pun intended. Muscle tone can be seen in as little as 4 weeks. You’ll actually feel the benefits in as little as 2 weeks. Your joints will ache less, you’ll sleep better and you’ll feel more balanced, physically and mentally.
Myth #3: I have to exercise 5 to 7 days a week.
The more you workout the faster the results, I won’t lie to you there. However, with lifting weights and/or basic strength training, you’re body does more then just burn calories at rest, you are building your muscle at rest so your days off are just as important as the days you work out. Personally I love to lift no more then 3 days a week and even feel great going just 2 days a week. The secret is maintaining some activity in your day outside of an intense (strength) workout so be sure to incorporate as much activity as you can in your every day life.
Final thoughts,
Keep in mind, this is a lifestyle change and habit I want you to experience first hand. Don’t rush! If you’ve experienced past injuries or have current pain in your body, please see your doctor before you begin any new exercise plan. Take your time to get to know what lifting weights is all about and how it affects your body. Remember to S-T-R-E-T-C-H every day to avoid injury and maintain a level of comfort on this journey. Soreness will happen and that’s when your body is recovering, it is a good thing! Come back here for more insight and to help keep your head in the game. You can always contact me with questions!