There are so many ways you can exercise. Any exercise will give you some health benefits, however lifting weights stands out among other options. Everyone should lift weights because it helps to improve muscle mass, keeps your bones strong, and will help you maintain a healthy body weight long term.

Improve Muscle Strength

The body adapts to any demand that is placed upon it. Lifting weights places demands on your muscle, which is how it will get stronger. Lifting weights recruits more muscle fibers which increases strength. Lifting weights will create small tears in the muscle, which will repair and make the muscle stronger than it was before. Muscle strength is so important, not just from an athletic perspective, but it helps you increase your capacity to do your daily activities and prevents injury.  

Keep Your Bones Strong

Lifting weights keeps your bones strong. Your bones also adapt to the demands that are placed on them. Lifting weights places a demand on the muscle, which will also place a demand on the bone. Bones are constantly being broken down and built back up by cells. The building back up is faster during younger years and slows as you age. But, by placing demand on the bone, you can keep some of the bone building function and keep your bones’ density. While exercise isn’t perfect in keeping bones strong, there are other methods to help prevent injury from brittle bones. Drugs like alendronate can reduce the likelihood of vertebral fractures.

Maintain Healthy Body Weight

Lifting weights helps you maintain and improve your muscle mass. An increase in muscle mass can help increase your resting metabolic rate (RMR). The RMR accounts for most of your overall daily calorie burn, which is important in weight control. During resistance training, our body must work hard and recruit many muscles, which require energy. Weightlifting also has an “afterburn effect” where the body uses more energy than baseline while it recovers. The combination of the calorie-burn effect of the weightlifting workout, plus the muscle mass that comes from it, will help you to maintain a healthy body weight long term.

Weightlifting is a great way to improve your body and health. Weightlifting helps to keep muscles and bones strong and helps you maintain your body weight. Long term these benefits will influence all other aspects of your health and help you look and feel your best.

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