Why strength training is so important
By Rhys, Club Manager at PCYC Logan
Strength training is one of the most effective ways to improve your overall health and fitness, yet many people still shy away from it due to common myths or misunderstandings. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the basics of strength training, explore its many benefits, and clear up some of the most common myths. Whether you’re new to exercise or looking to take your fitness to the next level, strength training has something to offer everyone.
What is strength training?
This is also refered to as reisstance training. This is where you use any form of object (e.g., bar, dumbbell, resistance band or even body weight) to create a resistance against the muscle to stimulate the muscle. One type of strength training is Hypertrophy training which uses less weight to stimulate the muscle (e.g., 3 sets, 12 reps of a workout). This stimulates the muscle in a range of motion for a high amount of reps that we can use a lighter weight that will be healthier for the joints. If you are training to be as stong as you possibly could, you would use heavy weights to build your muscle, in a smaller number of reps (e.g., 6 sets of 3 reps).
The most common myth – will strength training make me ‘bulky’?
Men in their first year of training are likely to see anywhere between 5-10kg of muscle mass built in their first year. For women, it is half of this with 2.5-5kg of muscle. In the second year, those numbers are halved – men will gain between 2.5-5kg and women 1.25-2.5kg. The third year, you half that again, and keep halving as the years go on. This means that getting bulky is out of the equation.
Benefits of strength training
One of the major benefits is reducing the chances of muscle atrophy – where your muscle drops off the body over a period of time. Most inactive adults will experience 8% of muscle mass loss per decade, leading to an increase in body fat and reduction in daily calorie expenditure.
Sarcopenia is becoming more common in adults and sedentary workers. This is where your body reduces the muscle mass loss per decade at a higher rate. This is a lot more common now that we are living in the sedentary age. This puts older adults at risk of having falls, breaking hips, having their bone mineral density drop, lower muscle mass and a higher risk of injury. The only cure to this is resistance training. It will happen to those who do not train. We want to train for the life we want to live for the rest of our lives.
Another major benefit is injury prevention. Your body will push through a large range of motions that will reduce the number of injuries. For example, single leg exercises will reduce the amount of muscle tears in older adults as there is strength in those areas, and shoulder excercises with weights will reduce joint injuries.
Below are a plethera of other benefits you recieve when you do strength training:
- Prevents osteoporosis, lower back pain
- Positively affects insulin resistance
- Resting metabolic rate, glucose, metabolism, blood pressure
- Body fat reduction
- Improves gastrointestinal transit time
- Reduces cholesterol
- Improved cognitive function
- Reduce chances of heart disease, diabetes and cancer
- Intake in more calories
The work we do in the gym allows us to live a better quality of life outside of the gym.
Your training type also has benefits!
Training in a progressive overload is a sustainable way for training long-term. This is the ability to continuously make your workouts harder so the muscle does not adjust to the stimulant.
A great example of this is the tale of Milo and the bull. Milo was a farm boy that carried a calf on his shoulder every day. As the calf grew in size and became a bull, Milo grew stronger and was able to carry the bull on his shoulders. Milo used weight as a metric of measure, but you can use other tools to make your training harder (e.g., increasing reps or sets, slowing your movement, changing the tempo, changing equipment types). If we don’t do this, we will stay the same. After 4 weeks, what you started doing will become too easy, so you will need to measure. What gets measured gets improved.
The science behind it all
Our goal is to quite literally microscopically tear a muscle. When we finish working out, our body will work to repair or replace the damaged muscle fibers through a cellular process where it fuses the muscle fibers together, to form new muscle protein strands. These repaired muscle strands will increase in thickness and number to create muscle growth. If you don’t eat enough protein, the muscle will not be able to heal correctly, and you will feel sorer for longer. This all happens while we rest, that is why rest is so important in the first 24-48 hours after your workout.
Incorporate it in your routine
Want to start incorporating strength training into your routine, but not sure where to start? As a PCYC Gym+Fitness member, you can participate in our Activ8 Group Training classes, specifically our Activ8 Strength classes every Tuesday & Thursday!
Don’t have Activ8 Group Training at your club? You can participate in our Activ8 Fundamentals program that includes a range of strength training to incorporate into your routine!