What’s THE Most Important Thing That You Can Do For Your Self, Your Body and Your Health?

It's.......Strength Training!

So....Why Is That?

Well it makes you stronger of course, but sooo much more, so let’s get into why you need to make sure you’re actively building your strength and muscle!

It Makes You Feel Better

Strength training promotes your endorphins, your mood elevators and pain relievers, reduces symptoms of depression - and also impacts control of serotonin and dopamine which affect mood regulation – it’s very good at reducing mild to moderate symptoms of depression and anxiety; it’s more effective than psychotherapy and pharmaceutical therapy for patients with depression, anxiety or psychological distress.

Your emotional health improves, which equals higher states of happiness.

It Improves How You Feel About Yourself

It increases self-esteem and confidence. One review found that resistance exercise improves self-efficacy, perceived physical strength, physical self-worth and global self worth in children between 5-18 yrs, so it’s important for youngsters to get stronger as well as adults.

Better Brains

It protects against Alzheimer’s, strength training gives you improved cognitive abilities, focus, attention, multi-tasking and problem solving abilities.

Stronger Bones

It protects against osteoporosis and helps build back bone- the International Osteoporosis Foundation recommends that adults should engage in strength training 3-4 times per week for optimal bone health.

Increased Stability

Older adults are at an increased risk of falling because of the depletion of muscle mass over 30 and lack of core strength. This means that you can’t catch yourself if you start to topple. With weaker bones, a fall could result in broken bones; 50% of older adults who break their pelvis never recover.

Stability is important at any age, for all activities and sports.

Improves Diabetes and Other Metabolic conditions

Because muscle is metabolically active, it requires more energy to just keep it going. It can also help to make your body more insulin sensitive, helping you use fuel more effectively.

Helps All Hormonal Conditions

There's a big push for men and women (from middle age) to take hormone replacement therapy (HRT), however taken over a long period of time, these therapies have been linked to heart and other chronic health conditions. When these hormones occur naturally, they can work wonders however. Weight training is the only activity that creates hormonal changes in men and women as well as burning fat and building muscle. In both sexes, weight training stimulates the release of Human Growth Hormone, which builds muscle and burns fat as well as making your body more insulin sensitive, reducing blood sugar and reducing risk of diabetes type 2.

Strength training also regulates estrogen and testosterone, it stimlulates their production and helps rebalance the hormones, naturally.

You Burn More Calories

Strength training is crucial if you want to lose fat, because muscle is metabolically active. Having more muscle means that your Basal Metabolic Rate is higher (how many calorie syou burn by merely existing) than somebody of equal weight but with less muscle. improving body composition and increases excess post exercise oxygen consumption which leads to increased calorie burn for several hours after workouts.

You Look and Feel Better

Having muscle gives us that toned look that we all want. People with muscle look stronger and more confident.

An old cartoon, where the skinny guy is getting sand kicked in his face!

Boosts Athletic Performance

Every athlete strength trains; it boosts speed, power, efficiency, coordination and core strength. If you take part in any sport or activity, just adding in 2-3 strength training sessions per week will improve your performance. It helps you prevent injury, so that you are not only doing one type of activity the whole time ie running.

Improves Daily Activities

Strength training helps you become better at doing normal activities like running, lifting, walking, moving things and playing with kids and grandkids.

Your Muscle Mass is on The Decline....Sorry....

From age 30, even if you exercise daily, you may not be actively maintaining or building muscle, which can result in sarcopenia, osteoporosis, lack of stability, reduced ability to conduct daily activities and do the sports that you love.

Improves Your Ticker’s Health (and your Cardiovascular System)

It Improves your heart health and reduces cardiovascular disease; it can lower blood pressure, reduce inflammation in the body, improve insulin sensitivity and increases cardiac output. Increases good cholesterol and reduces ‘bad’ cholesterol.

Reduces Risk of Injury from Everyday Movements or the Sport You Love

Reduces the risk of injury- if you find are always at the physio- maybe pay the gym a visit. Strength training will help to improve posture, how your body functions and evening up imbalances, all of which can result in injuries over time, especially with our sedentary lifestyle.

Improves Your Sleep

Strength training improves sleep quality and duration; sleep is critical in maintaining health, it supports immune function, a healthy metabolism, weight management and cardiovascular health. Lack of sleep is linked to obesity, diabetes and heart diseases as well as being tied to emotional and mental wellbeing.

Lifting weights improves anxiety and symptoms of depression which can all Impact sleep negatively.

Reduces Cancer risk

Reduces the risk of certain kinds of cancers; colon, kidney, bladder,  and lowers overall cancer mortality by 31%

Improves Sexual Function and Libido

The fact that you have more muscle, more energy and more blood coursing through your veins, plus more endorphins, plus more testosterone explains everything here.

Increases Joint Mobility and Flexibility

It increases your joint range of motion when you train through a full range of the movement. Lifting weights is just as effective as stretching; so much so that you might need no stretching at all to improve flexibility , if you strength train.

Hyper Mobile?

If you’re hyper mobile, we’ve got you covered here too, as it helps to stabilise your joints; reducing risk of injury.

It Will Help Your Posture

Too much sitting and looking at our phones has developed bad posture in us all. Strength training is the best way to correct it.

Fountain of Youth?

Strength training is as close as we can get right now to a  fountain of youth as it boosts physical function in seniors; you are never too old to start.

But Won’t I Get Bulky?

Women often don’t start strength training as they think they will get bulky, however chocolate muffins make you bulky! You have to lift a lot over a long length of time and possibly take steroids to get what I would call bulky, from excess muscle.

However on the flip side, it’s good to take up ‘more space’ in this world. For too long, women have been forced by the media into being skinny, taking up less space, eating less and being ‘less than’.

I’m Too Busy to Strength Train

Given all these benefits, it may be worth shuffling things around a little so that you can reap these rewards.

Overall; My Thoughts on The Matter From a Female Personal Trainer

Strength training improves your overall quality of life in so many ways. Even if you’re not into cardio or other forms of exercise, most people like strength training; it just gives them so much! It’s not always easy, often technical, but my clients get a real sense of achievement when they get it right and they start lifting weights they never thought was possible.

For the hour or so that you are in the gym, you can’t think about anything else, you need to concentrate on the weights, your form, your technique. Just that alone is great for a world of overthinking overstressed people; a great alternative to meditation, as well as all the other health benefits discussed above. It really can enhance every aspect of your life.

It’s never too late to start but it’s important that you learn how to train properly to prevent injury and invest in a good coach.

If you’d like to train with me, one of the best and one of only two PPSC (Pain free Performance ) coaches in HK,  and you live close to Sai Kung, drop me a line and tell me about yourself and your goals.

Ally van de Pol is a Strength & Conditioning Coach, NASM-CPT, PPSC (Pain Free Performance & Pain Free Knee Specialist Coach), Senior Exercise Specialist, Health & Wellness Coach