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The fear of becoming too muscular keeps many people away from doing strength training. Some people just want to remain fit and healthy and do not want to become too muscular. With that fear many men and especially women prefer to run or walk or do aerobic exercises like walking, jogging or cycling.
Strength training will not make us Salman Khan. It ain’t that easy. If it were, I would be Salman Khan by now.
And due to the lack of strengthening exercises or activities that need the usage of muscles, we lose muscle mass. Muscular atrophy is a very common age related phenomenon. In short, what does n’t get used, gets wasted.
Strength training is extremely important for us, especially women and men above the age of 40.
Here is why:
1. As we age metabolism drops. Muscles need maintenance and hence it drives up the metabolism. Higher metabolism indicates more calories are burnt at rest and it helps with fat loss.
2. As we age we lose muscles. Have you seen elderly folks often needing support for walking. We notice that many of them lack balance. Muscular atrophy with age is very common and the way around it is strength or resistance training. In India, we commonly find senior citizens prefer walking over muscular strengthening exercises. This has to change.
3. We need strength (read muscles) for our day to day activities: for moving furnitures inside the house, for lifting our grocery bags, for lifting our suitcases. if you are the kind of person who prides in being self- reliant, then strength training is a must for you.
4. Post menopause, women start to lose their Bone Mineral Density. It is widely accepted that mechanical load induced by strength training increases the muscle mass, produces mechanical stress in the skeleton, and enhances the osteoblast activity. Osteoblast is a cell that develops bone. Strength training has been recommended as a low-cost and safe non-medicine intervention strategy for the conservation of musculoskeletal health.
5. Strength training eases depression: Strength training has shown to reduce anxiety and promote a sense of wellbeing. Strength/resistance training has shown to be beneficial during the treatment of depression. A Harvard study once found that ten weeks of strength training reduced clinical depression symptoms more successfully than counseling.
Hope this article convinces you that you need to focus on building muscles.
Now that you are convinced, are you thinking that, you will now have to buy expensive gym membership? Are you thinking that now you will need to get trained on using complicated Gym equipment? Don’t worry. I will address your concerns in the next post. Please stay tuned.
If you wish to work on your strength; become healthy and fit, we can help. You can reach us at customercare@navitae.com or whatsapp us at 74062-09945 or leave us a message here.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6279907/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC474733/
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/strengthen-your-mood-with-weight-training