Muscular strength and endurance are important for overall health and fitness that enable you to perform daily activities with ease as well as maintain a high level of function as you get older. Most people think of resistance training as lifting weights to improve strength and aesthetics but there are many benefits from this type of exercise.
As we age, we lose muscle strength (dynapenia) and muscle mass (sarcopenia) but we can offset this loss with resistance training due to increases in contractile proteins, size of myofibrils, connection tissues and size of type II muscle fibers. We also have an increase in the size and strength of ligaments and tendons which help to support our joints and muscles. We also can get an improvement in our bone mineral density which is important for those with, or who want to prevent, osteopenia or osteoporosis.
We can also have nervous system benefits as well with resistance training. The more we practice resistance training, we can see an increase in motor unit activation and recruitment which means more muscles are turned on and they become very efficient. We also see corticospinal excitability which helps to improve motor control and movement pattern during daily activities.
Biochemically, we can have increased in testosterone, growth hormone, insulin-like growth factor as well as catecholamines which play a role in fat oxidation, muscle mass, muscle strength, bone growth, blood flow, and body fat percentage.
Not everyone wants to be a body builder, and you don’t have to be but one of the easiest ways to live a long robust lifestyle is to lift weights and remain functionally strong.