Many people do not know the benefits that weightlifting can offer the body. Compared to other fitness activities, w
From weight loss to mental health, and even bone strength you’ll be a stronger person because of it. It takes determination and time, but there’s no doubt that weightlifting will improve almost every aspect of your life.
Not only does weightlifting help with weight loss, but it will also aid with strength building and muscle growth. By lowering your body fat percentage, you’ll develop a more defined look that many people desire.
Weightlifting also helps with aspects that you and other people can’t see. Many people who workout find that their self-esteem and confidence are greatly improved since they started weightlifting. Other things too like the strength of your bones, which you can’t see, but is a great thing to improve your overall health.
Other benefits include getting better sleep and improving hormone balances in your brain. Hormone balance is very important to your mental health and stability, which some people experience due to poor diet and lifestyle habits.
Weightlifting usually comes with the benefit of an improved diet. While not everyone chooses to take up a better diet, doing so will make your everyday life even better. All of these things may seem small, but when you pair them all together, weightlifting will make your life better in countless ways.
Weight Loss
One of the greatest benefits of weightlifting and one of the reasons many people start in the first place is weight loss. Losing weight itself has multiple benefits, from looking better to becoming more healthy.
When you start weightlifting, unless you are already fit, you’re likely to lose weight. This is because you’ll end up burning calories and fat and be preparing to build muscles.
Weight loss not only makes you look better, but you’ll feel better and be more healthy. Removing fat from your body will make you lighter, and make your body more free for movement.
You’ll also be able to do more activities. If you’re more severely overweight, you may have trouble with doing some things you used to love. Things like running, swimming, climbing or hiking may be nearly impossible. Weightlifting can help you to once again enjoy your favorite activities.
Losing weight also has more serious health benefits. It comes with the benefits of less risk of heart attack, heart disease, diabetes, blocked arteries, and other dangerous conditions and ailments.
Some people weightlift for the benefit of looking better. While looks aren’t everything to everybody, they’re many peoples motivation for weightlifting and weight loss. Looking better can help you feel better about yourself, as well as finding a partner.
Strength Building
Another major reason people lift weights is to build strength. Many people want to get stronger, for vastly different reasons. Some want to be able to do more activities, while others just want the strength to say
Strength building has many applications outside of the gym. You can lift heavier things, have stronger bones, and even be able to defend yourself better. While weightlifting may not be healthy for everybody, there’s no doubt that getting stronger is a good thing for your body.
When you lift weights, tiny fibers in your muscles are torn up and broken down. This is why you get sore after going to the gym. After your workout, while you’re recovering, these fibers are being repaired. When you’re recovered, these fibers are built stronger meaning your muscles are stronger than before.
There are also many different techniques for building strength. You can build strength quickly, and you can also build strength slowly. Both work well, so find what’s good for you.
This is the common process of strength training. You go through this cycle each and every time you go to the gym. While it’s debated how often you should lift weights, it all depends on how much you’re lifting and what feels comfortable for you. If you find your muscles are too stressed to lift, wait a day or two and come back.
Physique (Looks)
One of the main factors that drive people to the gym, myself included, is physique. The way you look is important to many people, and weightlifting is a definite way you make you look better.
When you weightlift, your body burns fat and builds muscles. This leads to your body looking more defined and toned. You’ll end up showing more muscles, and the more you lift, the bigger your muscles will get.
While this seems great, many people hit a plateau at a certain point, and struggle to look bigger or get stronger. You can overcome this by improving your diet, and push through to lift heavier weight. This may sound difficult, but with discipline and time, you can break past any plateau.
In fact, there is a whole subsection of weightlifting concerning this. Bodybuilding is more specific to looks than other types of lifting like powerlifting.
There are also other ways to support and affect your looks while weightlifting. Supplements like protein powder and creatine will advance your progress and help to grow your muscles even more.
Like I mentioned before, looks are a large motivator for people. Everyone that falls into this category has different reasons for wanting to look better, like increasing self-confidence, or helping to get a date. No matter your reasons, weightlifting, with time, is sure to improve your looks.
Hormonal Health
While this isn’t a huge reason why people weightlift, it will benefit you nonetheless. Lifting weights can improve your levels of testosterone as well as growth hormone. Eating right, which many weightlifters do, also decreases your chances of developing diabetes.
Testosterone is a hormone many men are after, especially older men. As you age, your body produces less and less testosterone. This makes some men begin to look more feminine, and lose manly traits. A lack of testosterone also leads to a decreased sex drive, another issue for older men.
Low testosterone can be an issue for men of all ages, not just older men. Some people just naturally produce less of it. This can cause some non-serious issues, like feminine characteristics and the lack of the ability to grow facial hair and a low sex drive.
Weightlifting helps to restore or amplify testosterone production. However, a
Lifting weights will also increase the growth hormone. Growth hormone may sound scary, as it’s usually associated with GMO’s and harmful farming techniques.
This being said, it’s natural in humans and very healthy. It helps to grow muscle, and even to burn fat. Stored in the brain, weightlifting accelerates the release of it into the body to help your muscles become bigger and stronger.
While this sounds great, there are some downsides. Overstressing your body and muscles can lead to increased production of cortisol, or the stress hormone. This can be amplified by eating the wrong foods after a workout, or other stresses in your life.
Bone Strength
Many published scientific studies report that weightlifting has a significantly positive effect on bone strength. A few studies show there’s no correlation, but these are outliers. Different studies also show that weightlifting decreases your risk of osteoporosis.
As people get older, their bone density starts to decrease. This is known as bone resorption, and it can be amplified by not moving or engaging in activities, otherwise called being sedentary.
Weightlifting oftentimes stops or even reverses this effect. Lifting weights helps activate cells called bone osteoblasts, that build up bone tissues within the body.
This is a benefit for everybody, not just those who are aging. Increased bone strength helps prevent fractures, breaks, and dislocation of bones.
Weightlifting can also help alleviate the risk of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a condition where your bones lose their mass and become weak and easy to break. While this sounds similar to what I talked about before, you can develop weaker bones without having osteoporosis.
While babies and children can develop osteoporosis, it’s mainly people over 60 who suffer from this condition. It may be difficult for people this old to weightlift, but simple even simple exercises that you can do at home will take away your risk, and even reverse some of the effects.
Injury Reduction
Many injuries can be developed during activities, sports, and just everyday life. Weightlifting can drastically decrease your risk of an injury, and multiple studies back that up.
One study showed that over seventy percent of athletes who acquired an injury did not lift regularly. It’s obvious that people who are engaged in strength training are at a significantly less risk of getting an injury, no matter what activity they’re involved with.
Lifting weights strengthens muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments. Having stronger bodyparts means those parts are less likely to be torn, ripped, or broken. These injuries can occur during any physical activity, mostly sports and muscle intensive activities.
Having stronger muscles, and being more limber helps prevent overstretching and overextended limbs. It’s very easy to develop injuries, especially in contact sports, and weightlifting will help reduce the risk.
Weightlifting also reduces the risk of developing health issues like diabetes and heart disease, making you more healthy overall. These illnesses pose real threats to people, and while there are many solutions, weightlifting is a prominent one.
By lifting weights, doing cardio, and eating right, you can eliminate the risks of many diseases and conditions as well as make your life longer. As far as weightlifting goes, there’s no downside to making yourself healthier.
Improved Posture
Weightlifting can have a significant effect on your posture. Many people have issues and imbalances with their posture, making their body look uneven. Bad posture can lead to pain, and long-term bone complications if untreated.
More specifically, many bodybuilders have issues with their posture. Bodybuilding is all about symmetry and having things look even, so if their posture is unbalanced, that could be a big issue.
Weightlifting can help fix your posture through rebalancing muscles. Sometimes, you can get uneven muscles from doing activities with one part or side of your body more than the other.
Say that one muscle on your back is stronger than the same muscle on the other side of your back. These muscles pull on your bones at different strengths, potentially causing your backbones to be uneven.
This can happen anywhere on the body although posture issues usually stem from the back, and the legs/feet. Weightlifting isn’t the only way to correct posture, and it shouldn’t be your first resort for posture issues. However, if your problems aren’t severe, weightlifting could be a great solution.
An imbalanced posture usually isn’t a serious health issue. This being said, it can lead to pain, discomfort, and undesirable looks. Weightlifting is a great fix to these common ailments and more, making it one of the best things you can do for your health.
Stress Relief
As I talked about earlier in the article, weightlifting helps with balancing hormones in the body. Lifting weights not only balances hormones but helps you worry less about health issues, as well as being a great way to let out built up stress and even anger.
When you lift weights or go to the gym, your body releases hormones and endorphins that affect your stress levels. For the most part, these are beneficial, but sometimes it can have a negative effect.
If you overwork yourself in the gym or have an unhealthy diet, your body will sometimes release cortisol, the stress hormone. This will reverse the stress relief aspects of working out, so it’s important to lift at comfortable levels while still making progress and eat a healthy diet.
Diabetes and heart disease are two of the leading causes of death in the United States, and their numbers are increasing. By going to the gym and keeping yourself healthy, you can reduce the risk of these conditions and have less stress knowing you’re less likely to develop them.
Stress and even weightlifting can cause acne
as well. Stress releases different hormones in your body that can lead to acne. Weightlifting itself can also mess with your hormones, as well as creating more sweat on your skin. Keep yourself clean and eat a good diet, and you should avoid this.
Sometimes I go to the gym to look better, sometimes to get stronger, and sometimes just to relieve stress. Everyone has a way to let out stress, and I’m not sure why, but lifting is a very common one. Intensive physical activity is a great way to take off the stress from the day, get healthy, feel better and more relaxed.
Overall Happiness
When you start weightlifting, you’ll start to see your life get better in many ways. Whatever your goals are for weightlifting, you should be improving yourself.
As I mentioned, weightlifting can improve the hormone balance in your body. This will make your brain healthier, as well as making you happier.
When all the chemicals in your brain are better balanced, this will improve your mood, attitude, and energy throughout the day.
Along with this, you’ll most likely start to look better. Whether you want to lose weight or gain muscle, most people hope to become more attractive, even if it’s not your primary goal.
Looking better can make you happier, but it can’t make you happy. As cheesy as it is, happiness comes from you, and looking better won’t instantly make you happier.
The Bottom Line
As I’ve written throughout the article, there are countless benefits to weightlifting and so few downsides that they’re almost not worth mentioning.
Weightlifting will affect every aspect of your body for the better. Sure you might feel sore after a workout, but this is temporary and you’ll be even stronger once you recover.
Study after study shows that weightlifting is helpful for keeping yourself healthy. From balancing hormones to getting stronger and looking better and even having stronger bones, weightlifting will make you healthier overall.
Getting into lifting weights also usually leads you to develop a better diet. Doing so similarly has countless health benefits, and puts you at much less of a risk for certain diseases and conditions.
Going to the gym can help you feel better about yourself, look better, and have an easier time getting dates. Looks aren’t everything, but if you look like a statue of a Greek God, most people wouldn’t consider that a bad thing.
There are a few risks to weightlifting, like overworking yourself, overstressing or even over/hyperextending a limb. These are no fun, but if you do things the right way and do them safely, the risk is so small compared to the benefits.
Weightlifting is no doubt one of the best things you can do for your health. If you’re physically able, I recommend everybody to do some kind of lifting in the gym.
