6 Reasons Why You Need a Strong Body
A strong body. For many people it’s a side benefit of their main goal. While targeting fat loss, muscle gain or sports performance, we get stronger as a result of the training we do to accomplish these other goals.
There are, however, compelling reasons to train for a strong body in it’s own right. Here are a half dozen reasons why you need to get stronger now.
No.1 Reason to Develop a Strong Body: Functional Fitness
The typical sedentary Western lifestyle promotes bodily imbalance. Functional Fitness addresses this imbalance by forcing the opposite sides of the body to work together synergistically, rather than isolating individual muscle groups. Strength training that emphasises compound movements will develop your functional fitness.
No. 2 Reason to Develop a Strong Body: Injury Prevention
Strength training doesn’t just make your muscles stronger. It also strengthens your tendons, ligaments and bones. This helps to keep the body in proper alignment when it’s under impact. It also helps the body to better absorb shock. Strength training will also eliminate weak areas, allowing for balanced strength and development. This will also help to prevent injury.
No. 3 Reason to Develop a Strong Body: Builds Muscle
Muscle is what gives your body it’s shape. For a man, it provides the foundation for that classic V shape, it will allow a person to develop capped, well shaped shoulders and impressive ‘guns’, as well as a full chest and flaring thighs. And for women, muscle will form the basis of a sexy, shapely body with toned, athletic arms, round butt and to die for legs. Bottom line – muscle will make you look fantastic!
No. 4 Reason to Develop a Strong Body: Sports Performance
To be a fitter, better athlete you have got to get stronger. For athletes and sports people, get stronger will have the following immediate benefits:
- Explosive power (for the explosive moves needed in activities like tennis and sprinting)
- Muscular Endurance (to be able to last the entire game)
- Maximal strength (again it boosts your explosive power as well as allowing pure power – such as is needed in a rugby scrum)
- Muscular bulk (to counter aggressive body contact)
No. 5 Reason to Develop a Strong Body: Fat Loss
Strength training has been scientifically proven to be a superior way to burn fat. Done properly, weight training will actually burn more calories than cardio training.
Compound exercises like squats, lunges, rowing movements, deadlifts and pressing movements are not only extremely taxing on your anaerobic system, they also require a lot of work to be done by your aerobic system. This combination of the two systems working together is not only the smartest way to train the body, it also burns up a whole lot of calories.
Strength training produces what is known as an ‘after-burn’ effect. This means that it has the power to increase the speed at which your body burns up calories to perform it’s vital functions. In addition, the work that the body has to do to repair muscle damage from training and for building new muscle comes with a very high energy cost.
And there’s more – the higher your lean body mass, the faster your metabolism will be in order to maintain the muscle that you carry
No. 6 Reason to Develop a Strong Body: Boosts Confidence
Strength training will allow you to both look and feel better. You will come to a new appreciation of just what your body is capable of. You’ll be setting and achieving goals, you will build discipline and you’ll become a goal-oriented person. Focusing on getting stronger will give you a huge boost in confidence and self-esteem.
References:
Eur J Appl Physiol, 86: 411-417, 2002
Med Sci Sports Exerc, 36:973-982 2004