If you’re wanting to boost your health and fitness, improve your balance, strengthen your bones along with losing weight, consider adding some weights to your workouts. Along with a heap of other benefits, it will improve bone density and add tone and definition to your muscles.
Working out with weights, or ‘strength training’ doesn’t have to mean stepping into a gym and pumping iron with bodybuilders either. By adding free weights that are comfortably challenging at home, and using your own body weight, you add resistance to target specific muscle groups to achieve some great results.
Here are our Top 7 Benefits of Working out with Weights
1. Makes you strong
It may seem a little obvious but working out with weights, will in time make you stronger. And that can only be a good thing. As we get older we naturally start to lose muscle and density, so by increasing muscle mass with weights, you will also increase muscle strength that just makes everyday tasks easier.
2. Great for Weight Loss
Working with a resistance boosts your metabolism and you will burn more calories if you have more muscle, and what’s even better is that once you’ve exercised and rested, you’ll continue to burn calories.
3. Lifting Weights Lifts your Mood!
Aside from the obvious strength benefits, working out with weights can affect how we feel and how clearly we think along with improving sleep quality. Physiological changes happen to our bodies when we exercise with endorphins being released which lifts mood and energy, plus seeing physical changes to our bodies feels great!
4. Decrease Osteoporosis risk
While the bone-weakening disorder Osteoporosis is a major cause of disability in older women, it is never too early to use strength training to keep your bones strong. Bone density starts to decrease around the age of 30, so using resistance training will counteract the effects of decreased bone density as we age.
According to Osteoporosis Australia “a combination of progressive resistance training with a variety of moderate impact weight-bearing activities is most effective for increasing bone density or preventing the bone loss that occurs as we age.”
5. Improves Cardio Function
Cardio and aerobic exercises like running, swimming and bike riding get your heart rate up and can improve cardio function. That said, resistance training done properly, also elevates your heart rate enough to give you cardiovascular benefits.
6. Reduces The Risk of Injury
Along with working your muscles and making them stronger, using weights in your workouts also makes tendons stronger and ligaments more flexible which can prevent injuries in everyday life. As you get stronger in your legs, your balance will also improve.
7. Lowers inflammation and regulates insulin
Along with many other benefits, strength training can have a positive effect on those battling chronic diseases like Type 2 Diabetes. For overweight women, regular strength training can see a drop in inflammation and can regulate blood sugars levels by burning through glucose.
