Weight Lifting It's Not Just for Looks

Although many people are strictly interested in gaining muscle for aesthetic reasons, most are more interested in the health benefits of weight lifting.

The health and fitness benefits of weight training are overlooked by far too many people. Because of this they may experience problems with their body down the road such as increased stress levels, slowing metabolism and decreased bone density to name a few.

Weight lifting can help increase bone density as it is one of the best weight bearing exercises you can do. This in turn will help avoid osteoporosis as well as future stress fractures.

While some people think running is a good exercise to increase bone density this really is not the case. Running actually can promote the breakdown of muscle as opposed to weight training which promotes the building of tissues. Running will also put far more impact on your joints and ligaments as well.

Strength training with weights does not only help build stronger muscles. You are also working the tendons and ligaments that connect bones, muscles and other tissues so you are really strengthening your whole body. This will help avoid possible injury while doing other physical activities. Most injuries occur because a muscle, tendon or ligament is not strong enough when a stressful force is applied. Since weight training will really hit all those deep tendons and ligaments, it's the best injury prevention out there.

Weight training has also been shown to have a positive effect on overall health. Reduction of insulin resistance, blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and even cancer can be effected by weight training.
By combining weight training with a proper diet you are much less likely to develop these chronic problems.

Consistent weight lifting will help raise your metabolism which in turn will help you lose fat. This benefits you both health wise and aesthetically. You will actually be able to eat more while maintaining a health body weight. You will look and feel better as your body becomes leaner and stronger.

One common misconception is that weight training will make you huge, bulky or for the ladies, manly. This is far from the truth. As any person who wants to get bigger will tell you it takes a lot more then just lifting some weights. You need to eat a lot to get bigger muscles. So unless you go out of your way to add a ton of extra calories and protein to your daily eating habits you will not get huge or oversized.

Not choosing to include weight training as part of your current workout program would be the biggest mistake you could make as far as your long-term health and fitness level is concerned. There is no better time to get started then right now to get a stronger and healthier body. To learn more about weight training for health take a look at http://abquest.eddoherty.com