Strength training is foundational for good health, especially as you get older, and it is also important for heart health. Recent studies have shown a reduction of risks for heart attack and strokes, with less than an hour of strength training per week. Here Chris Iliades, MD, EverydayHealth.com, reflects on the many benefits of strength training:
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“If you knew that a certain type of exercise could benefit your heart, improve your balance, strengthen your bones, and help you lose weight all while making you look and feel better, wouldn't you want to get started? Well, studies show that strength training can provide all those benefits and more.
Strength training — also known as weight or resistance training — is physical activity designed to improve muscular fitness by exercising a specific muscle or muscle group against external resistance, including free-weights, weight machines, or your own body weight, according to the American Heart Association. (1)
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“The basic principle is to apply a load and overload the muscle so it needs to adapt and get stronger,” explains Neal Pire, CSCS, an exercise physiologist and the national director of wellness services at Castle Connolly Private Health Partners in New York City.
And what’s important for everyone to know is that strength training is not just about body builders lifting weights in a gym. Regular strength or resistance training also helps prevent the natural loss of lean muscle mass that comes with aging (the medical term for this loss is sarcopenia).
Strength training is an important part of your overall fitness and benefits people of all ages, particularly those with health issues such as obesity, arthritis, or a heart condition.
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The new Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), recommends children and adolescents ages 6 through 17 incorporate strength training into their daily 60 minutes of physical activity three days per week. Adults should aim to do moderate or intense muscle-strengthening workouts that target all muscle groups two days per week. (2)
And you need to rest in between strength-training workouts.
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“The thing about strength training is that you don’t get better during workouts; you get better in between,” says Pire. “You should give yourself a day in between strength training to allow your body to recover and rebuild the muscle tissue from the stimulus of lifting or resistance.”
How Strength Training Helps Your Health
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Besides the well-touted (and frequently Instagrammed) benefit of adding tone and definition to your muscles, how does strength training help? Here are just a few of the many ways.
1. Strength training makes you stronger and fitter.
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This benefit is the obvious one, but it shouldn’t be overlooked. “Muscle strength is crucial in making it easier to do the things you need to do on a day-to-day basis,” Pire says — especially as we get older and naturally start to lose muscle.
Strength training is also called resistance training because it involves strengthening and toning your muscles by contracting them against a resisting force. There are two types of resistance training: (3)
- Isometric resistance involves contracting your muscles against a nonmoving object, such as against the floor in a push-up.
- Isotonic strength training involves contracting your muscles through a range of motion as in weight lifting.
2. Strength training protects bone health and muscle mass.
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At around age 30 we start losing as much as 3 to 5 percent of lean muscle mass per year thanks to aging. (4)
According to a study published in October 2017 in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, just 30 minutes twice a week of high intensity resistance and impact training was shown to improve functional performance, as well as bone density, structure, and strength in postmenopausal women with low bone mass — and it had no negative effects. (5)
Likewise, the HHS guidelines note that, for everyone, muscle-strengthening activities help preserve or increase muscle mass, strength, and power, which are essential for bone, joint, and muscle health as we age. (2)
3. Strength training helps keep the weight off for good.
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Aerobic exercise such as walking, running, and cycling is well-known as a way to help increase the number of calories you burn in a day and thereby shed extra pounds. But strength training helps, too (even if you’re not burning a huge number of calories during the workout).
Exercise science researchers suspect strength training is helpful for weight loss because it helps increase your resting metabolism (meaning the rate at which your body burns calories when you’re just going about your day, not exercising).
“A good resistance workout increases your excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC),” Pire says, referring to the calories your body continues to burn after a workout.” [Resistance or strengthening exercise] keeps your metabolism active after exercising, much longer than after an aerobic workout.”
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Read More … Article Source: https://www.everydayhealth.com/fitness/add-strength-training-to-your-workout.aspx
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