When we want to carry our grocery bags home, we need strength in our muscles to do so. When we carry our backpacks during our vacation, we need muscle strength to lift and carry them. When we climb steps we need our legs to have muscle strength to move. Any activity we do in our daily lives needs muscle strength. We might not be able to do many activities if we don’t have enough strength in our muscles. But we can increase our muscle strength by doing exercises which increase the cross sectional area of the muscle fibres. This increase in the size of the muscle fibre increases the muscle strength. This type of exercise is called strength training.
In this blogpost I will share what strength training is, how we can increase our muscle strength, and what health benefits it has for our body apart from building muscle strength.
What is strength training?
Strength training is a type of exercise where we workout our muscles against an opposing force (like weights or our own body weight) to increase our muscle strength, anaerobic endurance, and skeletal muscle mass.
Strength in our muscles can be increased with one of the following four objectives:
- To increase the maximum strength a muscle has (maximal strength).
- To increase the endurance of the muscles (strength endurance).
- To increase the speed of our muscle response (explosive strength).
- To increase the speed and strength at which a muscle can release the contraction (reactive strength).
How to increase our muscle strength?
The strength of a muscle depends on the number of muscle fibres and the size of an individual muscle fibre. The number of muscle fibres is typically fixed in every individual at birth. But the size of each muscle fibre can be increased by doing exercises. After each exercise, the muscle fibres have micro tears, and during rest after the exercise, they rebuild. Supported with appropriate nutrition, the muscle fibres, while rebuilding, increase their cross section (hypertrophy) that results in increased muscle strength.
The exercises to build muscle strength can be done using –
- our own body weight
- free weights (like dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells etc) or
- weight machines
Depending on the focus of the workout (training specific muscle groups, individual muscles, or focusing on muscle movements), the level of our fitness, and our affordability, we can choose the type of exercises that makes sense to us.
Effects of strength training on the body
In addition to increasing our muscle strength, regular strength training has several health benefits for our body.
- Reduces our pulse at rest.
- Strengthens our heart muscle.
- Reduces risk of heart disease.
- Improves blood circulation by strengthening the heart and blood vessels.
- Normalises the blood pressure.
- Stabilises our blood sugar levels.
- Reduces fat levels in the blood.
- Works against the natural loss of muscle mass due to ageing (after 30 years each decade we loose 8% of muscle mass if we don’t exercise).
- Increases muscle flexibility.
- Increases Glykogen, Kreatine and ATP storages (fast energy) in the muscles.
- Generates more stimulants (enzymes) for ATP production.
- Makes our bones stronger.
- Increases mobility in joints.
- Reduces risk of osteoporoses.
- Reduces risk of falls and fractures.
- Contributes to weight loss (provided the food intake is carefully monitored).
- Reduces fat content in the body.
- Increases metabolism.
- Reduces risk of type 2 diabetes.
- Increases Testosterone and growth hormones in the blood, which helps with repair and building of body tissue including the muscle tissue.
- Reduces anxiety.
- Increases self-esteem.
- Releases endorphins, which elevate our mood.
- Increases blood flow to the brain.
- Can rebuild nerves in the brain (strength training with highly coordinative exercises).
- Helps protect from brain degeneration.
- Can increase cognitive performance/memory.
I’m trying to use exercise to help me recover from my depressive episodes this past year, so I was considering trying out strength training. It caught my attention that apart from making our bones stronger and reducing the fat content in our bodies, strength training also helps reduce anxiety and increase self-esteem by releasing endorphins. I’ll take note of this while I look for a fitness studio where I can get strength training soon.