The Untold Benefits of Strength Training

Everyone can agree that exercise is hearty. Among its many benefits, exercise improves heart and brain function, helps control weight, slows the effects of aging, and helps lower the risk of several chronic diseases. diseases.

However, for a long time it was believed that aerobic exercise was more effective than endurance exercise when it came to improving health, when in fact they are equally valuable and both can lend a hand us achieve the same goal of overall physical fitness.

Aerobic exercise such as running, swimming, and cycling is popular because it brings great benefits and is very effective. scientific evidence to support this.

Much less impactful to date has been resistance training – whether with dumbbells, weight machines or a good push-up, lunge and dip – which works just as effectively as aerobic exercise in all the key areas, including cardiovascular health.

Resistance training provides another benefit: building strength and developing power, which are becoming increasingly vital age of the person.

Building and maintaining muscle strength allows us to get up quickly from chairs, maintain balance and posture, and boost metabolism, as my colleagues and I explain in a recent article published by the American College of Sports Medicine.

So if aerobic exercise and endurance training offer roughly the same benefits, how come we have so many runners and cyclists but not weightlifters?

It was a combination of timing, marketing and stereotypes.

Development of aerobics

The preference for aerobic exercise dates back to groundbreaking research from Cooper Center Long-Term Studywho played a key role in establishing the effectiveness of aerobics – Dr. Ken Cooper invented or at least popularized the word with his book Aerobicsencouraging desk-bound baby boomers to take up exercise for the sheer pleasure of it.

Meanwhile, endurance training was fading away, especially among womendue to the misconception that weightlifting is a sport reserved only for men who want to have a very muscular physique. Charles Atlasanyone?

Cultural influences have solidified the dominance of aerobic exercise in the fitness landscape. In 1977, Jim Fixx made running and jogging popular among The Complete Book of RunningIn the 1980s, Jane Fonda Complete training and exercise demonstrations such as Aerobics and 20-minute workout helped solidify the idea that exercise is about raising your heart rate.

The word “aerobics,” once confined to the lexicon of science and medicine, entered popular culture at about the same time as leg warmers, sweatpants, and sweatbands. It made sense to many that the weighty breathing and sweating from sustained, vigorous movement was the best way to reap the benefits of exercise.

All this time, endurance training has been waiting for its turn to take center stage.

Recognizing resistance values

If aerobics was the hare, resistance training was the tortoise. Strength training is now coming alongside and preparing to overtake its speedy rival as athletes and everyday people alike see the value that was always there.

Even in high-level sports training, weightlifting didn’t become common until the last 20 years. Today, it strengthens the bodies and lengthens the careers of soccer stars, tennis players, and golfers. and many others.

The growing interest in resistance training is the result CrossFitwhich, despite controversy, helped break stereotypes and encourage more people, especially women, to lift weights.

It is vital to realize that resistance training does not always lead to bulking up or require lifting weighty weights. As our team’s research has shown, lifting lighter weights to failure over multiple sets provides equal benefits.

Strength and Aging

The benefits of resistance training go beyond improving muscle strength. It addresses a critical aspect often overlooked in classic aerobic training: the ability to exert force quickly, or what we call power. As we age, everyday activities like standing, sitting, and climbing stairs require strength and power more than cardiovascular endurance.

In this way, resistance training can be crucial to maintaining overall fitness and independence.

Redefining the Fitness Narrative

The main idea is not to pit resistance training against aerobic exercise, but to recognize that they complement each other. Participating in both forms of exercise is better than relying on just one. American Heart Association recently concluded that “…resistance training is a sheltered and effective approach to improving cardiovascular health in adults with and without cardiovascular disease.”

Taking a nuanced perspective is crucial, especially when leading elderly people who may associate exercise primarily with walking and be unaware of the limitations that come with neglecting strength and power training.

Resistance training is not a one size fits all endeavor. It includes spectrum of activities tailored to individual possibilities.

It’s time to redefine the narrative around fitness to make more room for resistance training. It doesn’t have to be seen as a replacement for aerobic exercise, but as an crucial part of a holistic approach to health and longevity.

By breaking down stereotypes, demystifying the process, and promoting inclusivity, resistance training can become more accessible and engaging to a wider audience, ultimately leading to a modern way of perceiving and prioritizing the benefits of this form of training. health and fitness.