By Vince DelMonte
While
some
individuals are strictly interested in obtaining muscle for aesthetics,
for
most people, this isn’t an interest. Instead, you’re more interested in
knowing
what are the benefits of weight training for you….
What are the health and fitness benefits of weight training? Far too many people
overlook the many health
and fitness benefits that weight training has to offer, and because of
this,
experience problems down the road with their body such as decreased
bone
density, a slowed metabolic rate, increased stress levels and other
negative
consequences that are associated with constant stress.
Increased
Bone Density
Weight lifting, being one of the best weight bearing
exercises you can do, will
increase your bone density and help ward off osteoporosis or stress
fractures
in the future.
Many people think running is the best exercise for increasing
bone density, but
this isn’t necessarily true. If the truth is told, running actually
promotes
muscle breakdown in the body, while weight lifting, being an anabolic
process,
helps to promote the building of tissues.
Therefore, weight lifting is going to be much better at
preserving your bone
mass, not to mention it’s far less impact than going for an hour run.
Decreased
Frequency of Injuries
When you strength train, not only are your muscles going to
get stronger, but
you’ll also work the ligaments and tendons that are connecting bones,
muscles,
and other tissues, thus reducing the chance they become injured when
participating in other physical activities.
If you’ve ever been injured, you know just how frustrating
this can be. In
about 80% of all injury cases, the injury is a direct result of a
tendon,
ligament, or muscle not being 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.
Reduction
of Health Related Risks
Numerous studies have demonstrated that regular weight
training can have a
positive effect on health by showing reductions in the rate of insulin
resistance, blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer.
If
you couple a solid weight training program
then with a well-thought out diet, you’ll be putting your best foot
forward at
warding off these chronic problems
Prevention
of Fat Gain
The
more you
weight lift, the higher your metabolism will be, thus the more food you
can eat
while maintaining
your weight.
If that isn’t good news for your future and the fight against body fat,
I’m not
sure what is.
Now, with all of this said, one big problem many
people run into is the
thinking pattern that using a muscle building program will make you big
and
bulky.
This is most certainly not the case.
Let’s look at an analogy to gain an understanding of this.
Pretend you have two teams and each are going to try and
build a house using
the exact same building technique.
One team is given 10,000 bricks to construct this house, and
the second team is
given only 1,000 bricks.
Who’s
going to build the bigger house?
The choice should be obvious – team one since they have more
bricks to build it
with.
Now, think of those bricks as being the calories you put into your
body.
Unless you’re supplying enough calories, you aren’t going to build
really big
muscles. This is precisely what makes bodybuilders look like
bodybuilders.
It’s not just about the way they train, but more about the
way they eat (if
you’ve ever had a teenage son in the growing process in your house, you
likely
know just how much food must be consumed when growing at rapid rates).
Whether it’s growing in height during puberty or trying to
build bigger muscles
later on, calories must be supplied for this growth process to take
place.
You can’t build a house out of nothing. Likewise,
you can workout all you
want, but if those building blocks – in the form of amino acids,
carbohydrates,
and dietary fats are not there, you aren’t going to see too much muscle
growth.
So, don’t get caught thinking that just because you add weight lifting
to your
workouts, you’re going to develop large bulky muscles. If you
control
your diet, this simply will not happen.
So, hopefully it is clear now that just because you’re weight lifting,
it does
not mean you will end up with bulky muscles as a result. Many
people make
this incorrect assumption – but it really is the diet that makes all
the
difference in how this weight lifting will shape your body.
When you make the decision to work with me using my 6-Pack Ab Quest
program,
I’ll take you through the weight lifting and ab techniques that will
provide
maximum results with minimal effort on your part (why spend more time
in the
gym than you have to?), as well as provide you with meal plans that are
custom
designed to ensure you get the best results from your training without
the
muscle bulk – in fact, the plans are formulated to help you shed the
fat so you
look leaner and more defined.
Not choosing to include the benefits of weight training as
part of your current
workout program is without-a-doubt the biggest mistake you could make
as far as
your long-term health and fitness level is concerned. Don’t
let this
exercise pass you by any longer.