Strength Training

The importance of strength training is taking on added significance as more and more evidence points to the lack of muscle maitenance as a prime reason our body begins deteriorating at an accelerating rate.

How we look and how we feel can be improved by muscle gain or hampered by muscle loss. Strength training is one of the best methods to gain muscle. But it does more than that: it also makes you feel great and gives a toned, healthy look.

Research indicates unless we strength-train regularly, we lose more than one-half pound of muscle every year of our lives after age 25.

Without safe and effective strength-training program, muscles gradually decrease in size and strength in a process called atrophy. Duke University researchers discovered strength training is effective in reducing depression, tension, anger, and confusion, especially in older participants.

Strength training brings about several important physiological changes:

• Increased Metabolic Rate
  Metabolism increases. Muscle maintenance requires more fuel than fat, as a result, your metabolic furnace gets fired up. That one-half pound of muscle loss every year after 25 produces a one-half percent reduction in Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) every year. A reduction in BMR means our bodies are less able to use the food we consume as energy—so more gets stored as body fat. An increase in muscle causes an increase in metabolic rate. You become a lean, mean fat-burning machine.
• Increased Bone Density
  Weight bearing exercises build sturdier bones. This is of particular importance to women who may be prone to osteoporosis.
• Strengthening Of Tendons and Ligaments
  These support structures tend to weaken as we age. Strength training allows for continued enjoyment of the activities you love throughout all the stages of life.
• Increased Endurance For Daily Tasks
  Strength training increases the stamina and physical power necessary to do the things you need to do in your daily life, simple things like carrying the groceries up a flight of stairs without gasping for air or picking up your child without putting your back out.

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