While strength training obviously improves your overall body composition and skeletal muscle mass, the health benefits of lifting weights go far beyond appearance alone. In this Saturday blog post I am going to discuss the benefits to strength training regularly – HINT: it’s not what you think!
- Strength training increases your mental toughness. Each time we push through a challenging workout we are improving our mental toughness and ability to endure challenges. This will benefit you in so many other areas of your life. So many people in today’s world are living very comfortably and never putting themselves through challenges or doing anything remotely labeled “uncomfortable”. And so that is making people SOFT. When you lift weights regularly, push hard through challenging and uncomfortable reps, get sweaty and push the heart rate you are increasing your ability handle challenges in so many other areas of life! The more you do this, the more mental toughness you have and the more you know you can handle. Essentially, you are making yourself a WARRIOR! Not a wuss. LET’S GO!
- Weight training increases your self-confidence. For so many reasons, lifting weights boosts self-confidence because the more we tackle challenges and things that SCARE us, the more empowered we feel. Ever done a pull-up when you weren’t sure you could? Ever lifted a weight that at first you thought you couldn’t do?! When you do something that you know is very tough and you’ve never done before, you increase your self-confidence. This makes you feel really good about yourself and will transfer into your relationships with other people and will improve the relationship you have with yourself because you know what a badass you are.
- Better self-discipline. Self-discipline is something we can all increase the more we incorporate it into our lives. Think about someone in the military – they wake up super early each day, make their beds, keep their home tidy and do their workouts and get to work on their other tasks for the day. There is a reason why boot camp within the military incorporates PHYSICAL WORK and challenges – because this build self-discipline in other areas. Fitting in workouts each day requires discipline and of course working out is no easy task, it SHOULD be hard and challenging, so the more you do this the better your discipline muscle is strengthened.
- Better blood sugar levels. This one is amazing – the more skeletal muscle mass we have, the better our insulin sensitivity is and therefore better blood sugar levels. More muscle mass through strength training helps to remove glucose from the blood and sends to muscle cells. This is SUCH GOOD NEWS for anyone who wants to improve their health far beyond appearance alone.
- Better organization. I truly believe that when you workout regularly, even with a busy schedule, that you will improve your organizational skills. That is because it requires an organized schedule and weekly routine in order to keep up with weekly workouts. You typically structure your week with some kind of plan in terms of weight training on certain days and cardio on others, etc., so when you do this you are improving your organization skills that will transfer over to other areas of your life. In order to fit in workouts all the time with busy schedules, you have to be organized — so the more you structure your day with blocks of time planned out accordingly, the more you get done. It’s amazing what you can accomplish in one minute, ten mins or thirty mins. So much time can be wasted scrolling social media or watching Netflix – but when you prioritize working out each week, you have to have some thought going into the workout plan and travel time to and from the gym (if applicable), pre and post workout foods, that sort of thing. This all requires mental planning, preparation and organization.
- Higher self-efficacy. A lot of people will not be familiar with this term but I love it. Self-efficacy is basically one’s belief to execute behaviors necessary to reach specific goals. If you do not have any self-efficacy your chances of accomplishing anything in this world are slim to none. High self-efficacy means you BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN do hard things – you have faith in your abilities and skills. The way to increase self-efficacy is by doing hard stuff! Attacking challenges, doing things maybe you were not sure you could do! When you do this more regularly, you increase your self-efficacy – and it’s a wonderful cyclical thing. The more you believe in yourself, the more chances you take on doing things that could greatly benefit you or just make you stronger as a person. If you don’t believe in yourself, it’s very unlikely that you will accomplish much in this world. The first thing you have to do in order to change or become better is BELIEVE you can do it!
That is it for today! I could go on and on of all the benefits of strength training regularly, but it is so important to remember it goes far beyond the physical appearance! I believe training regularly in the gym helps you mentally as a person, and those benefits are so much more than just looking a certain way. Strength training makes you feel good physically and mentally, so do MORE of it!
ANY QUESTIONS about at-home workout plans feel free to reach out kellyahayman@gmail.com
Kelly Hayman Fitness 