Unleash the incredible benefits of strength training. It is truly a life-saver and a must for anyone who wants to increase life span and quality of life over this span.

It amazes me people aren’t strength training.

There are some obvious benefits of strength training (also referred to as resistance training), like increasing your muscle size and strength, but it is the other not so known benefits that make this type of training the highest of priorities.

These other benefits of strength training that support good health and longevity include:

Sharpness of the Mind

While inactivity can speed up cognitive decline, resistance training can help with keeping our minds sharp. Training helps increase blood flow to the brain, especially in older adults. This blood flow will help increase brain-derived neurotrophic factor; a protein that supports long-term memory and overall cognitive health.

Preventing Falls

Strength training has numerous benefits to help prevent falls and help prevent damage from falls. Along with improving strength, there is also an increased benefit in mobility and reaction. Both of these factors are important in lowering the risk of a fall. The other benefit to protecting against falls is the increase in bone density that comes from strength training, helping older people become more resilient from bone breaks from falls. And maybe the biggest benefit is being strong and mobile will assist people in getting up from a fall. Unfortunately, the inability to get up from a fall is common in our elderly.

Preserving Metabolic Health

In recent years we are starting to understand the importance of muscle mass and good metabolic health. One of the key factors for health past our 60s is the amount of muscle mass we have. Poor muscle mass correlates with poor metabolic health; resistance training helps us keep our muscles, which in turn helps with good body composition.

I have included a video below from Gabrielle Lyon that digs a bit deeper into the importance of muscle and protein as we age…or at any time in our lives.

 

Surviving Cancer

This one links in with the video above. Older adults with higher amounts of lean mass are more likely to survive a battle against cancer, with fewer surgical and treatment-related complications.

These are some of the benefits of strength training. There are many more that we haven’t discussed in this article. Things like making your joints stronger, enhancing and supporting fat loss, cardiac benefits, mental health benefits, etc.

Let’s stick to the main theme of the article without making it a long read. And this theme is strength training gives you immediate benefits as well as very long-term benefits. Benefits that will help you stay alive. Life-saving benefits that can be achieved through 2-3 strength sessions per week.

Let me flick back to one of my opening statements. Help it sink in for anyone who is reading this but not strength training.

It amazes me people aren’t strength training.

 

Reference: PN Nutrition