Is strength training the best form of exercise?
What is Strength training?
Strength training is when you lift heavy things to make it so you can lift heavier things. Just kidding! Kind of… Lifting heavy things is a great way to build strength, but you can also just use your bodyweight! Strength training, also known as resistance training, is a form of exercise that uses resistance (often your bodyweight or external weights) to build muscle, strength, and/or endurance. It’s essentially you having to work against any sort of force or resistance.
Common examples of strength training exercises are push-ups, squats, lunges, deadlifts, rows, etc. Resistance could be your bodyweight during a push-up, a barbell on your back during a squat, dumbbells in your hands while you lunge, or a band you use during a row. There’s thousands of ways you can strength train which makes it very adaptable and customizable to anyone. Really, anyone can strength train. I’ve trained 5-year-olds all the way up the 84-year-old’s. Their workouts were drastically different, but that’s what’s awesome about strength training, everyone can benefit.
But don’t I burn more calories doing cardio?
This is technically true if we are looking at one individual workout. You WILL burn more from running on the treadmill for one hour than you will strength training for an hour in the short term, but in the long term strength training will burn more. How does that work? Imagine you’re building an engine, as the engine increases in power, it requires more and more fuel to operate. Now compare yourself to the engine, as you strength train more, your engine requires more and more fuel to operate. Essentially, as you increase your power (or muscle mass and strength), your fuel (AKA food) requirements will increase because you burn more fuel (calories) when operating (doing normal things). Cardiovascular training on the other hand is like making an engine more efficient, instead of increasing power input, that engine becomes more and more fuel efficient. As you run more, you require less and less energy to run - hence being more efficient (which means you require less calories to function). This was highly advantageous when food was scarce, not so much anymore.
That’s not to say cardiovascular training doesn’t have a place in your exercise routine. It may not be as good at burning calories than strength training in the long term, but it is great for your heart! Hence the name cardiovascular. For most people, the best from of cardio they can do is just walking more. Aiming for 8,000-10,000 steps is sufficient cardio to maintain a healthy heart. If you’re looking for more, high intensity interval training (HIIT) is an effective and efficient way to improve your cardiovascular health. Jogging, for the average person, will likely do more harm than good. Alternatively, you could do biking which tends to be a lower risk of injury option than jogging.
I don’t really want to be in the gym six days a week…
Too bad! Just kidding. I’m not even in the gym six days a week and I literally work in a gym. Strength training six days a week is a big waste of time. Even successful bodybuilders aren’t in the gym six days a week - and if they are, they aren’t strength training all six of those days.
This idea of all or nothing when it comes to strength training is way off base. It requires half of that - and often times even less than half to see results. Most people can greatly benefit from 1-2 days of strength training per week. 3 days per week would see slightly better benefits. The additional benefits you could possibly see by strength training more than 3 days per week are so incrementally small that it’s really not worth it.
I personally strength train 3 days per week, and it took me YEARS to realize this was the superior way to strength train. I used to be in the gym 5-6 days consistently, and had subpar results. Sure I got stronger and build muscle, but my results could have been so much better had I just took some damn rest days! (Rest days mean days where I don’t strength train, not literally resting all day.) Like anything, you can overdo strength training and actually see negative side effects: poor recovery, soreness or even pain, poor sleep, fatigue - just to name a few.
You’re much better off doing as little as possible to elicit change - I heard that from Mind Pump podcast host, Adam Schafer. We don’t want to be teetering on the line of overtraining all of the time, we want to whisper to our muscles to build more, not scream at them. How often did screaming at someone make them want to do what you asked?
But I want to looked toned, not big and bulky…
This one’s a funny one. You think lifting weights is going to make you look like Arnold Schwarzenegger? If that were the case, we would have a lot of people walking around looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The truth is, lifting weights will never make you look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. You aren’t going to become a Major League Baseball player by just playing tee ball, it takes a bit more effort than that.
Strength training won’t necessarily make you more toned, and that’s only because the word toned in reference to strength training was completely made up - you can’t “tone” a muscle. Muscles can get bigger or they can get smaller, they can’t tone. The toned look essentially means you have less bodyfat covering your muscles, which strength training can definitely help with.
Ok then, so why is strength training the best form of exercise?
Strength training builds up your metabolism
Like we talked about before with the engine analogy, strength training makes it so you require more energy to operate. Which means your metabolism improves so you can eat more donuts (Don’t actually eat more donuts). As you build more and more muscle, you require more calories to just exist - you don’t even need to be doing exercise to require more on a daily basis. With more muscle, you even require more while sleeping - which is your basal metabolic rate (BMR).
Strength training improves your strength (well, duh!) and muscle mass
Obviously, strength training will improve your strength - that’s why they put it in the name! But it really will improve your strength and muscle mass substantially. The cool thing about building more muscle and strength is that our body will remember the blueprint that you used to build that muscle. That sounds vague, but what it means is that the first time you build muscle and strength in a meaningful way, your body has to do that from scratch, so it writes a blueprint in case it has to replicate it in the future - enter muscle memory. Muscle memory isn’t just your body remembering how to ride a bike after 15 years, it’s also remembering how to build muscle.
Take the Mind Pump Podcast host, Adam Schafer, he was an IFBB professional bodybuilder, recently he build 30 pounds of muscle in one month… One month. This happened because of muscle memory. He lost a bunch of muscle from a family emergency that left him unable to train for months, but as soon as he got back to strength training consistently, his body knew how to efficiently build back that muscle. So when you build muscle strength training, the first time will be the hardest, but if you were ever to lose it, you can build it back much faster.
Strength training increases bone density
Did you know that bone density starts declining in your 30s! And women lose up to 20% of their bone mass in the first 5 to 7 years following menopause! 20%, that’s insane. Men will lose, on average, 0.5-1.0% every year starting in their 60s. This is a major reason for needing hip, knee, or shoulder replacements: our bones are too damn weak!
The good news is that you can increase your bone density by strength training. Studies show you can improve your bone density by 1-3%, and that statistic came from a short term study, nobody knows how much you could build over the course of a few years! And even if you aren’t able to necessarily build more, you can at least maintain what you have.
Strength training has much lower risk of injury than other forms of exercise
Traditional forms of exercise like jogging or team sports have a much higher risk of injury than strength training, and like we discussed earlier, have much less benefits. I will mention that strength training will carry higher risk if done improperly, but compare to other forms of exercise, the risk is very small. It’s recommended that if you are new to strength training you should really emphasis perfecting your form before progressing with added resistance or repetitions. A great way to drastically reduce the risk further is to work with an experienced personal trainer - like me at Primitive Wellness!
Strength training improves your mental health (it’s like doing bicep curls for your brain!)
Exercise in general has been shown to be as effective as the leading medications at reducing anxiety and depression, and that’s just general exercise. Like we have discussed, strength training is best form of exercise, with that title comes even better mental health improvements! For example, strength training at a weight lifting gym comes with a sense of community that is encouraging and uplifting, and those who suffer from anxiety and depression benefit greatly from an uplifting environment and encouragement from others!
On the other hand, you can also train by yourself or with headphones in the make it more of a meditative experience. Meditation is harnessing the practice of mindfulness, and being mindful doesn’t require you to sit with your legs crossed and eyes closed. Being mindful while exercising helps promote a “flow state” that helps you get more from your training.
It also has cognitive benefits: improving memory, cognition, focus and concentration (and these are only to name a few). These can be extra beneficial as we age. The common reason used for cognitive decline is “aging,” which couldn’t be further from the truth, but unfortunately it’s an issue that does correlate with aging, luckily you can help prevent that decline by strength training!
Strength training improves your balance and coordination
Falling down is one of the worst things an elderly person can do. An elderly person rarely dies from the fall, but the broken hip that sends them to the hospital often leads to pneumonia or another nasty sickness that inevitably leads to their death. You don’t want that, right?
If you answered yes (hopefully), then strength training can help you improve your balance and coordination. Like building muscle or strength, you can build better coordination and balance. You won’t necessarily look any different when you improve balance and coordination, but you will feel much more stable and anchored.
The good news is that it doesn’t take a lot of training to improve your balance and coordination, and doesn’t require intense training. One or two days a week of low-to-moderate intensity training can drastically improve your ability to balance and can help maintain your ballerina-like coordination well into your golden years!
strength training helps you perform better at life
Do you want to move better while playing with your kids? Be able to put your own luggage in the overhead compartment when flying? Bend over and touch your toes without hurting your back? If you answered yes to any of the above, then strength training can help! Strength training promotes a functional physique that not only looks good, but moves good, too.
I will note, you’ll only get these benefits from strength training when you do it properly, focusing on good range of motion and flexibility. If you just chase big muscles or heavy lifts, you won’t derive the improved flexibility, range or motion, or functionality.
Where do I start?
If you are nervous to go from zero to one hundred in your fitness routine, perfect! Diving head first into strength training is a great recipe for failure and inevitably giving up. You should instead start with 1-2 days of bodyweight exercises like squats, push-ups, and lunges. These exercises may seem simple, but they are fundamental movements that are prerequisites for more challenging movements like deadlifts, bench press, and pull-ups.
If you need further assistance, I can’t stress enough how much working with a personal trainer can help make the whole process way less daunting. Personal trainers are able to tailor workouts to each and every individual, no matter their level of fitness. Whether you want training for your middle school son who plays basketball or if you are eighty-two looking to improve your pickle ball skills, there are personal trainers who can help! And I know a perfect one who has worked with all types of people (postpartum mothers, young athletes, Division I athletes, seniors, office-workers, etc.) and has been able to help each one of them improve their fitness and reach their goals.
If you want to learn more about working with a personal trainer at Primitive Wellness, contact us! We also do free consultation meetings with no commitment required. We are hear to help you, no matter your fitness goal.
