Strength training is not just exercise. Many people currently exercise, but very few do strength training, which means they are missing out on very important benefits.
Don’t get me wrong, exercise is great. It gets your blood pumping, endorphins flowing, muscles working and joints moving.
Everyone could use more of it. This could be walking, dancing, running, going to the gym, and many other things that create activity.
Strength training adds some really great benefits that you don’t from just exercise. Here are just some of the many benefits people see...
Strength and Aging: A study published in the journal "Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise" found that individuals who regularly engage in strength training are 46% less likely to die prematurely than those who don’t.
Muscle Mass and Metabolism: For every pound of muscle you gain, your body burns an extra 6 to 10 calories per day at rest, as stated by the National Council on Strength and Fitness.
Blood Pressure Reduction: A meta-analysis in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that resistance training led to a significant decrease in blood pressure (an average reduction of 3.2 mmHg systolic and 3.5 mmHg diastolic).
Depression Relief: A meta-analysis of 33 clinical trials involving over 1,800 participants found that resistance training was associated with a significant reduction in depressive symptoms.
Improved Cognitive Function in Elderly: A meta-analysis in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that elderly adults who engaged in resistance training showed improvements in attention, memory, and higher-order cognitive functions.
Fat Loss: A study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that men who increased their weight training by 20 minutes a day had less age-related belly fat gain than men who increased moderate-to-vigorous aerobic exercise.
Reduced Visceral Fat: A study in the journal "Obesity" found that, among individuals with type 2 diabetes, combining resistance training with aerobic exercise led to greater reductions in visceral fat compared to just aerobic exercise alone.
So strength training is not only for your muscles, but for mind, longevity, fat loss and more!
If it is so good, why do so few people do it? We think it is just because they don’t have the proper coaching and knowledge. Hopefully now we will be able to fix that, with the new Strength Coach feature in Gyroscope making it affordable and easy to do for everyone.
I won’t lie to you, it will take some effort. But just like you would tell your kids to do their homework and eat their vegetables even if they don’t want to, you as an adult should probably do strength training if you want to have a healthy body and mind!
The good news is even 1 or 2 hours a week is enough if done correctly!
And it doesn’t have to be very complicated... So what is “doing it correctly?” Is it a particular exercise or app that is needed? No.
The main thing you need to know is progressive overload. The body is amazing at adapting, but this doesn't happen overnight.
It takes time for the nervous system to take note and say “ok, this person is really doing this [exercise] a lot and they keep increasing intensity. I had better build more muscle and connective tissue to facilitate this repetitive behavior and load!”
What does a good training program look like?
It doesn’t have to be very complicated. Generally it means committing to a certain set of exercises, and continually reaching progressive overload for a few months.
But that doesn’t mean doing the exact same workout. If you just do the same exercises with same weights and same difficulty every time, you also won’t stimulate much growth (as your body has already adapted and doesn’t need to grow further)
So a good plan is one that keeps adapting as your body does, learning and changing the parameters slightly to keep you on your toes and in the optimal muscle building zone...
If you already have a personal trainer you work with or use another app and are happy with your progress, you can keep using those.
But if you don’t yet have a good training program and want to start one, get started with us!