At Adventure Fitness Athletic Club, everyone has their own unique fitness goals. Some of us want to reduce body fat, others want to increase muscle mass, and still others want to burn calories and lose weight. Many of our gym members seek to improve their mobility as they age and manage chronic health conditions. A few of us want to achieve all of the above and more!

Regardless, strength training should be a key component of everyone’s fitness program, as it supports almost every other health objective you can think of. That’s why our Thornton gym offers a wide array of strength training options so that members have many ways to incorporate this important exercise category into their regimen.

Read on to learn about the benefits of strength training and how you can make it a part of your regular workouts at our gym near you.

Why Should I Focus on Strength Training at the Gym?

Not too long ago, weightlifting was mostly reserved for bodybuilders and professional athletes, but times have changed. A lot. According to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, all adults should participate in muscle strengthening activities that:

Involve every major muscle group
Are of moderate or greater intensity
Take place 2 or more days per week

The same guidelines say that children and adolescents should include muscle-strengthening physical activity on at least 3 days per week.

Experts agree that strength training improves your physical, mental, and emotional health in ways that might surprise you. Here are some reasons why strength training is so important to your overall health and fitness.

Strengthen muscles

Probably the most obvious benefit of strength training is that it will make your muscles stronger. By forcing your muscles to work against resistance (AKA “resistance training”), you are stimulating them to grow more powerful.

Weight training might also help you improve at your favorite activities outside the gym, especially sports that require short bursts of power like soccer and cycling.

Several factors can weigh into how long it takes to see results from your strength training program, but in general, most people see and feel a difference within 6-8 weeks. To expedite your muscle gains, try to:

Consume 0.5 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day
Complete 6-12 repetitions for 3-5 sets at 75-85% of your one-rep maximum (your “one-rep maximum” is a weight that, on the final rep, feels very challenging but not impossible)
Keep your rest in between sets to no longer than 60 seconds
Give yourself a rest day in between your total-body lifting days, or if you lift every day, alternate the areas of your body that you train each day

Slow down muscle atrophy

As we age, our lean muscle mass naturally diminishes. If you don’t do anything to maintain or replace the lean muscle mass you lose over time, your body fat percentage will increase. Strength training can help you preserve and increase your body’s muscle mass as you age.

Reduce abdominal body fat levels

Research has shown that strength training does more than cardiovascular exercise to prevent age-related abdominal fat. It’s believed this is because strength training not only burns calories, but also stimulates the metabolism by increasing lean muscle mass. A higher level of muscle mass increases the body’s basic metabolic rate, or the number of calories per day that the body needs to sustain physiologic functions, even at rest.

Manage weight

In addition to slowing the development of age-related abdominal fat, strength training can also help you lose pounds and maintain a healthy weight. The benefit is two-fold: first, strength training burns calories, and second, as you gain muscle tissue, your body will burn more calories at rest.

Improve cardiovascular health

Many of us spend hours on cardio to improve our cardiovascular health. It makes sense, right? But did you know that strength training can also improve your cardiovascular health? By reducing our abdominal body fat levels, strength training decreases the release of certain proteins and hormones that cause inflammation (inflammation that damages blood vessels, increases blood pressure, and leads to heart problems). Since strength training prevents or reduces the development of abdominal body fat and the resulting inflammation, it improves heart health.

Strengthen bones

When you contract your muscles during strength training, they end up pulling on and stressing your bones, which prompts your body to increase bone density. This supports bone growth during your younger years and reduces your risk of osteoporosis as you age. Standing, weight-bearing moves like squats and lunges, in particular, increase the density of bones in the hips, lower spine, and femur (thigh) bones.

Improve quality of life

As your muscles grow, you’ll improve your ability to complete everyday tasks. Also known as the acts of daily living, or ADLs, common everyday movements like carrying groceries, walking, taking the stairs, and bathing become easier when your muscles are stronger. You’ll also protect your joints from injury, improve your balance, and reduce your risk of falls. There’s ample evidence that strength training will improve your quality of life and allow you to maintain independence as you age. The stronger you are during your workouts, the stronger you are in your daily life.

Improve chronic conditions

Those who suffer from chronic medical conditions like arthritis, obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, depression, and back pain can reduce the signs and symptoms of their condition through regular strength training. More specifically:

Strength training improves muscle’s ability to absorb and use sugar (glucose) in the blood. This helps reduce blood sugar levels and improve type 2 diabetic symptoms. In addition, people with moderate levels of muscle strength have a 32% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to people with low levels of muscle strength.
By reducing the amount of visceral fat in the body, strength training helps reduce cancer risk because visceral fat produces high levels of a cancer-triggering protein.
While cardio has received a lot of credit for keeping our hearts healthy, resistance training deserves some, too. One 2017 study concluded that women who did any form of strength training had a 17% lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease than those who didn’t do any strength training.
Strength training increases levels of feel-good chemicals in the brain (like endorphins). It also gives us an opportunity to overcome challenges in a controlled, predictable setting which increases mental resilience. This has been shown to reduce the frequency and severity of depressive symptoms, as well as help with the management of anxiety. One study demonstrated that lifting weights that are lighter than 70% of what you can lift in one rep provides the greatest positive effect on anxiety.

Just make sure to get clearance from your doctor before beginning any exercise regimen.

Sharpen your brain

Regular strength and aerobic training may help improve critical thinking and learning skills in older adults, according to research. While regular strength training can improve brain function throughout a person’s lifespan, one study in 2016 showed that, when mentally impaired men and women ages 55-86 performed strength training for six months, their performance on cognitive tests significantly improved. Stretching workouts, however, resulted in a decline in cognitive test scores.

It’s believed that the increased flow of blood, oxygen, and other nutrients throughout the body – including the brain – during strength training is what leads to the improvement in brain function.

Lower injury risks

Weak muscles put extra stress on surrounding tendons and joints, which can cause or exacerbate conditions like tendonitis and osteoarthritis. Strength training can help bolster tendons and joints and prevent them from getting injured.

Overall, having a good, strong foundation of muscles is important for coordination, balance, and injury prevention. Many strength-training exercises require you to move in different planes of motion and at different angles, making your major muscle groups and smaller supportive muscles more stable. Being balanced and more stable becomes increasingly important as you age, as falls are the leading cause of injury-related deaths in people over 65.

Improve mobility and flexibility

In addition to your regular stretching routine, taking your joints through their full range of motion during strength training exercises can increase your range of motion. Multiple studies have shown that strength training improves flexibility in both men and women.

Elevate mood and energy levels

Research has shown that consistent strength training improves perceived physical appearance. No matter what the actual aesthetic results are, strength training boosts your body image which also boosts your energy levels and feelings of accomplishment.

Get better posture

Staying in one position all day — like sitting in front of your computer — weakens the muscles in your torso and can ruin your posture. Regular strength training improves the endurance of your trunk muscles and can help you maintain a healthy posture.

Enjoy a longer life

All these health benefits add up to a longer lifespan and better quality of life. One 2016 study found that twice-per-week strength training reduced the risk of all-cause mortality. In the study, researchers followed older adults for 15 years and concluded that participants who strength trained at least twice per week were 46% less likely to die during that timespan.

Strength Training Strategies at AFAC Gym

Now that we understand the many benefits of strength training, let’s look at a few of the many strength training opportunities we provide for our members at AFAC gym. Our gym offers a full selection of strength training workouts, including but not limited to:

If you’d like to learn more about strength training at AFAC, please stop by our gym to chat with a member of our staff and take a tour of our facility. You’ll get to see firsthand why we’re the best gym in Thornton, Colorado. You can also contact our gym owner, Susan, at 720-849-0245 or susan@adventurefitness.club for assistance.

To read more articles from Adventure Fitness Athletic Club, check out our Adventure Corner blogs by clicking here.