“Strength Training - a few whys and whats?”
There is so much more to increasing your muscle mass than just strength!
Why you should read this blog:
You aren’t doing any strength training at the moment (and maybe never have!)
You aren’t lifting heavy weights to a point where you can’t lift them anymore (reaching what we call failure or overload)
You are a woman (I was going to say a perimenopausal or menopausal woman, but in fact, it’s best to start lifting heavy shit now - whatever age you are!)
You are any gender (the benefits of good muscle mass effect us all and we can all increase our muscle mass)
You are old (ditto above! You are never too old to build muscle mass and don’t let your doctor tell you differently!)
You have low bone density (or don’t want to develop it)
You have a joint problem (No exercise won’t make it worse!)
You have blood sugar issues (You may not be diabetic, but do you crave sugar, feel hungry within 2 hours of eating or struggle with the energy rollercoaster)
You suffer from depression or anxiety (or low mood)
You are worried about dementia (perhaps just worried, or maybe someone in your family has been diagnosed so you want to avoid it)
You are overweight (forget cardio, strength training is your friend if you want to burn more calories and lose body fat)
You have low energy (you probably think you don’t have the energy to strength train, but bigger muscles will give you more energy!)
AND LOADS MORE!
I bet you didn’t know that by lifting heavy weights you would be improving your memory and cognitive function did you? More about that in a moment, let’s start with the physical stuff.
By strength training, we not only put our muscles under load, so improving their strength and increasing their mass, we also put our bones under load, increasing their strength and mass too! And we strengthen our joints by adding muscle mass around them which tightens the joints and reduces wear. But lifting heavy weights, with correct technique is vital!
A lovely lady who has recently joined my outdoor group training sessions has a knee injury which has limited her activity (she is a long distance walker) and put her in some pain. She also has low bone density - osteopenia. She has regularly worked out at the gym for years, but the knee wasn’t getting any better and she was considering surgery.
When she joined my group, I noticed that her muscle mass wasn’t great despite her activity levels and gym work, but that she also did her strength exercises quickly and without due regard for technique. Over the next couple of months, I encouraged her to squat more slowly - counting at least 4 seconds for each rep, and taking care to keep her knees in line with the outer half of her toes and her weight evenly through her feet, with a very tiny pause at the bottom of the movement. Her technique really improved, and today, she told me that her knee was starting to feel better. She even managed to jog up the hill, rather than power walk which she had been doing since she started. I was thrilled to hear this, and asked her if she had also slowed her reps down and focused on her technique in the gym, to which she replied that she had, and had increased her weights!
It will be really interesting to hear if her bone density has improved when she goes to get that tested in a few months, but I’m sure it will have - I’ve had great results with bone density in several women over 60 when introducing strength training with heavier weights, moving more slowly and improving technique! If this can be done in post menopausal women, when oestrogen has depleted causing an acceleration in muscle and bone loss, then it can certainly be done in younger women and people of all genders and ages! AND, if you build the bone and muscle mass in your 20s and 30s, then the habits are formed AND the depletion will happen later, keeping you stronger for longer!
So we know that lifting weights will increase muscle and bone mass and improve the strength and integrity of your joints AT ANY AGE! But what else does strong muscles give us?
Well, the bigger and stronger your muscles, the more mitochondria you have, and the more healthy these mitochondria are. These are the organelles inside all your cells which produce energy. And if there are more of them and they are more efficient because they are healthy, they will produce more energy - giving you more energy both physically and mentally throughout the day. Struggling with low energy - lift heavy shit!
And what do mitochondria use to produce energy? Yep - glucose. Sugar. Muscles store some glucose as glycogen and use this stored glycogen or blood glucose to produce energy for movement. The more muscle you have, the more glucose you can store and use, which helps your body balance blood glucose, reducing blood sugar spikes and potentially reducing your chances of developing type 2 diabetes, as well as numerous other health issues related to high insulin levels.
By this same mechanism, more muscle mass means more calories burned, meaning carrying more muscle will help with weight loss. If we simplify to calories in and calories out (I hate this simplification as there is so much more to it than this - all calories are really not created equal, but that’s a discussion for another time, or you can go back and read some of my other blogs!), if you are eating the same amount of calories, but have more muscles, you will burn more of those calories simply sitting still, as all those extra mitochondria burn glucose for energy, so less is laid down as fat, AND body fat will be broken down into glucose to fuel all the extra mitochondria.
So what about the mental benefits of muscle and strength training? Well, research has shown that strength training in older adults increases the volume of the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for short term memory, transferring short term memories to long-term storage, and spatial navigation - helping us to make a mental map or our surroundings - so potentially helping delay or even prevent the onset of dementia.
Muscles produce myokines, hormones which are released into the muscles and circulation and can modulate the production of other beneficial chemicals by other organs. One such compound is BDNF, which increases in production in muscles, the liver and in the brain where it promotes neurogenesis - the production of new brain cells and effects learning and memory. It also seems that those with depression have lower levels of BDNF, so raising these levels may impact mood.
Strength training itself reduces cortisol, the stress hormone, inducing a feeling of calm and confidence after a workout and our ability to lift heavy weights may enable us to deal with other ‘heavy’ issues we encounter during daily life, so reducing feelings of overwhelm, anxiety and depressions through changes in hormones, but also through invoking a more positive mental outlook. Since increased cortisol impacts other hormones, through feedback loops and production of cortisol and other stress hormones can reduce our ability to produce sex hormones, it can be very helpful for women struggling with menopausal symptoms to add weight training into their regime.
So resistance training and building muscle is about so much more than strength, and to achieve the best results you should be doing strength training 3 times each week, lifting heavy weights - a weight for each exercise which will limit you to less than 10 reps before you fail - for 2-3 sets, lifting them slowly to stimulate the muscle, rather than using momentum, and using good technique. I would highly recommend, even if you’ve been doing resistance training for a number of years, that you get yourself a good PT who can perfect your technique and ensure you are getting the best out of your workout. Remember, if you are working out well, you don’t need to be doing it for hours! 30-45 minutes of focused, good quality strength training is plenty!
Just a quick reminder that to build muscle mass, you need amino acids (the building blocks of protein and hence muscle), so do make sure you are eating enough animal or plant protein to provide enough for this AND for repair. As we get older we need more protein as we need to repair more! So have some at every meal - the equivalent of a palm sized portion of meat or fish or a cup (200ml) of cooked pulses or tofu etc - then add in a few nuts and seeds for snacks or a really good quality protein shake such as Synergy Worldwide’s Smartmeal, https://sswellbeing.synergyworldwide.com/GB/en-gb/Shop/Product/smartmeal
Schedule some strength training into your regime now for improved physical and mental health and wellbeing, but if you don’t know where to start, zap me an email and we can have a chat.
#onehealth.