Whether you use free weights, machines, or resistance bands, weight training offers many health benefits. Using weights to exercise has been practiced since ancient times when people engaged in this activity for better health and sport. Egyptians lifted sandbags and heavy stones, while Greeks lifted U-shaped stone weights called “halteres”— the precursor to the modern-day dumbbell.
Ancient societies understood the benefits of exercising with weights, and our modern-day society does, too. There are reasons why we feel so good this exercise, and understanding those reasons could benefit your overall health in the long run.
1. Improved Bone Strength
Weight-bearing exercise benefits bone health in several ways. It delays bone loss, which occurs as we age. After age 50, men and women start losing approximately 1 percent of bone mass every year. Training with weights is a natural way to help maintain bone strength.
Research also indicates that it can rebuild bone by stimulating growth and increasing calcium within bones. The stress and pressure from weight training can strengthen bone density. It's also an important tool for preventing or at least delaying osteoporosis. In particular, post-menopausal women benefit from weight training, as bone loss is common during menopause.
2. Blood Sugar Control
Weight training can boost insulin sensitivity, which is how your body responds to insulin. The higher your insulin sensitivity, the more efficiently your cells will absorb glucose from your blood — helping to control blood sugar. Your muscles use glucose as energy during weight training, which lowers circulating glucose.
Furthermore, people who participate in weight training have lower A1C scores, a measurement of someone’s average blood sugar levels for the past three months. Finally, increased muscle mass created by weight training can lower blood sugar levels.
Read More: Can You Reverse Type 2 Diabetes with Diet and Weight Loss?
3. Improved Mobility and Flexibility
Mobility reflects our ability to move freely. One way weight/resistance training promotes mobility is by creating stronger muscles. Those muscles provide support to the joints, including hips and knees. As joints are better supported, stability improves, leading to increased mobility and range of motion.
Weight training can be just as impactful as stretching to improve range of motion. Older people, who are more likely to experience falls, can decrease their risk with resistance training, as this type of exercise also improves coordination and balance.
4. Promotes Weight Loss
People typically associate aerobic/cardio exercise with weight loss, but weight training also positively impacts weight loss. This is achieved by building lean muscle, which burns more calories than fat.
Not only are calories burned during a weight training workout (although not as much as during cardio), but calories will also continue to be burned even when the body is at rest. This occurs as lean muscle continues to be built through strength training, which increases the resting metabolic rate (RMR). Lean muscle requires more calories to maintain basic bodily functions when not active, which helps to maintain a healthy weight.
Read More: Forget Dieting. Here's What Really Works to Lose Weight
5. Brain Booster
Strength training protects areas of the brain typically associated with degeneration, including reduced shrinkage in subregions of the hippocampus. Research shows that, in particular, older adults can benefit from resistance training by global and executive cognitive function.
There can also be a reduction of amyloid plaques, which are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Research suggests that brain health continues to have neurocognitive protective effects for up to a year after training. Other brain-related impacts include improved mood and emotional well-being. This is because strength training lowers depression and anxiety levels, improves sleep quality, and lessens fatigue — all of which contribute to mental health.
6. Hormone Balance
Weight or resistance training can assist in hormone balance. This type of exercise promotes anabolic hormones, which are associated with muscle building and tissue repair. These include testosterone, estrogen, insulin, and human growth hormone (HGH).
Exercise with weights also reduces catabolic hormones, which are typically activated when we are under stress — such as during a fight or flight response. These include adrenaline, cortisol, and cytokines.
Read More: For Vegans, Lifting Weights May Help Keep Bones Strong
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
Endocrinology and Metabolism.Effects of Resistance Exercise on Bone Health
A systematic review. Journal of geriatric physical therapy. Effect of weighted exercises on bone mineral density in post menopausal women. A systematic review
Endotext. Assessing Insulin Sensitivity and Resistance in Humans
American Diabetes Association. Resistance Training and Type 2 Diabetes: Considerations for implementation at the population level
Sports Medicine. Resistance Training Induces Improvements in Range of Motion: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Life (Basel). Effects of Resistance Exercise on Balance Ability: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials
University of New South Wales. Strength training can burn fat too, myth-busting study finds
Metabolites. Resting Metabolic Rate of Individuals
NeuroImage. Subregional volumes of the hippocampus in relation to cognitive function and risk of dementia
NeuroImage: Clinical. Hippocampal plasticity underpins long-term cognitive gains from resistance exercise in MCI
Sports Medicine. Effects of Exercise Training on Anabolic and Catabolic Hormones with Advanced Age: A Systematic Review
Allison Futterman is a Charlotte, N.C.-based writer whose science, history, and medical/health writing has appeared on a variety of platforms and in regional and national publications. These include Charlotte, People, Our State, and Philanthropy magazines, among others. She has a BA in communications and an MS in criminal justice.
