Benefits of Strength Training
MY JOURNEY
All through my 20’s, I was a cardio bunny. I was chasing what I considered the ideal body type of “lean and toned” with lots of weekly miles. In my mind it made sense, I was running TONS miles, and sweating a lot and that was going to give me the results I wanted. Does this sound familiar?! Well, spoiler alert, it did not work, I even ran a marathon, and throughout that training, I actually GAINED weight. In the picture on the left, I was almost 200lbs, running almost every day! On the right about 13 years later when I found and embraced strength training.
The bottom line is, that I ran because I knew how to do it. I had no understanding or formal training in lifting weights, strength training, or nutrition. I honestly thought of bodybuilders when it came to strength training and assumed that would make me bulky. After 12 years of dedicating my life to the health and fitness world, I have learned that those are the common reasons why most women do cardio over strength training. If you are one of those women I hope the message in this blog reaches you and encourages you to embrace strength training! the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Strength Training
When I say “strength training” I want you to picture more than bodybuilders and barbells and bulk.
Building muscle does not equal bulky, let’s address that first! In order to build a bulky “masculine” form, you would have to dedicate YEARS to a specific strength program along with a diet and supplements that support that type of training. If you are looking to build that type of physique, more power to you, but simply starting a strength training program will not give you those results. Strength training is more than barbells and Olympic lifting, it has many different levels and can be done with bodyweight, resistance bands, dumbbells, and suspension trainers…the list goes on and on! As you can see you are not really limited when it comes to finding ways to strength train. I mean the first option I listed was bodyweight and everybody has that!
Strength Training
When I say “strength training” I want you to picture more than bodybuilders and barbells and bulk.
Building muscle does not equal bulky, let’s address that first! In order to build a bulky “masculine” form, you would have to dedicate YEARS to a specific strength program along with a diet and supplements that support that type of training. If you are looking to build that type of physique, more power to you, but simply starting a strength training program will not give you those results.
Strength training is more than barbells and Olympic lifting, it has many different levels and can be done with bodyweight, resistance bands, dumbbells, and suspension trainers…the list goes on and on! As you can see you are not really limited when it comes to finding ways to strength train. I mean the first option I listed was bodyweight and everybody has that!
Top Benefits
There are SO MANY benefits of strength training that I could write an entire book on it…and maybe I will one day. But for the sake of quick blog reads, I have condensed it to the top 4 “highlight reels”.
OPTIMAL FOR WEIGHT LOSS AND WEIGHT MANAGEMENT
The short and sweet of this benefit is that strength training builds muscle and muscle burns more calories than fat. When you strength train you increase your lean muscle mass, lean muscle mass equals a higher metabolic rate, which equals more calories burned. While you might burn more calories DURING your cardio session, a strength training session will give you a continuous burn throughout the day, ultimately giving you a higher caloric burn. After a strength training session, your body is still burning calories for the next 24 to 48 hours as it works to repair stressed muscle tissues! That's known as the afterburn effect, or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), and the more oxygen you use both DURING and AFTER a workout, the greater the EPOC.
Aesthetics
The “lean” and “toned” aesthetic that most women are looking for can be achieved with strength training because it can change your body composition. It’s important to understand that there is a difference between weight loss and body composition though. When you strength train you can completely change the look of your body and sometimes the scale hardly changes. Muscle is more dense than fat and takes up less space on your body pound for pound. Therefore, as you build more muscle and lose fat you will appear leaner, even if the scale has not moved much! I always recommend tracking your body measurements or the way your clothes fit vs always relying on the scale to track results.
STRONGER JOINTS AND BONE HEALTH
Most women start working out to achieve some sort of aesthetic goal, however, the benefits go FAR beyond losing weight. One of the big ones I want to highlight is stronger joints and bone health. For those of you who are in your 20’s this might not seem like a big deal, but for those of us who are “no longer in our 20s”, know how important this is! Our bones and joints are our foundation, and just like any foundational structure the more weight you put on it the more strain/pain you cause. Someone with joint pain can struggle with simple day-to-day tasks, something as simple as standing up can be painful. When you strength train you will build muscle and strong muscles support your joints, building that muscle can reduce or even eliminate joint pain. Also, as we age and neglect strength training we can lose bone density, causing easy fractures and breaks. To prevent this from becoming your “normal”, you can add strength training into your routine. The continued overload placed on your bones during strength training keeps them strong, and strong bones are harder to break.
MENTAL HEALTH
Most people don’t think about the mental health benefits of working out until they have truly experienced it firsthand. Strength training can help reduce stress and even anxiety by bringing down your cortisol levels, which is also known as your “stress hormone”. Along with reducing your cortisol levels, strength training also causes your body to release endorphins that give you that “feel good” feeling. Combined these two have very positive effects on your mental health.
Another big part of the mental health piece is the mind-body connection that strength training requires. In the beginning, you are learning to connect with the muscles that you are working. Over time this evolves into a bigger connection with your body, you start to understand aches, pains, and general feeling good vs something being off. This connection and understanding with your body gives you the power to push harder and feel confident working outside of your comfort zone. When we feel confident we tend to hold our heads a little higher, sit up a little bit taller and smile just a little bigger!
If you are ready to start your strength training journey and don’t know how don’t worry, I’ve got you! You can head to my YouTube channel and start with the FREE Goddess Foundations series! This series is 3 weeks long with 3 weekly workouts that begin with bodyweight and progress into dumbbell work. If you are ready to COMMIT to a program I recommend joining the Goddess Squad through my APP! The Goddess Squad has monthly fitness programming, challenges each month centered around fitness, nutrition, and emotional health, tons of delicious recipes, and the BEST PART is you join a group of supportive women on the same journey! The membership is only $20 a month!
If you want some fitness equipment to start your journey, I recommend checking out this blog: Budget Friendly Home Gym Equipment for ideas and information on budget-friendly places to start.