8 Impressive Health Benefits of Building Muscle
Training your muscles isn't only for aesthetic reasons; there are numerous benefits of building muscle for the rest of your overall health too.
Want to learn more about how to build muscle and how it can help you lead a happier, healthier life?
More than 60% of the USA population do no form of strength training, which is a worryingly high proportion of the population. Strength training and building muscle are essential for maintaining overall health and wellbeing.
1. Gaining Muscle Makes You Strong
It may sound obvious, but strength training is essential if you want to have a strong and healthy body. Building muscle improves your overall physical fitness and helps you build stamina.
When you lift weights, it improves your ability to do any physical activity and your ability to recover from a workout. You will gradually progress and after a few months of strength training, notice that you can lift heavier weights and not find it so hard to work out.
As you age, your muscle mass decreases. After the age of 30, you can lose between 3% and 5% of your muscle mass each decade.
One of the most effective ways to stop the loss of muscle mass as you get older is to do some form of strength training. Whether it's lifting weights, using resistance bands, or your body weight, don't underestimate the importance of exercising as you age.
2. Boosts Your Immune System
Building muscle means you have to be physically active. It is well known that regular exercise can help strengthen your immune system and keep your body strong and healthy.
Those with higher levels of muscle mass tend to have a better immune response to certain illnesses and can help to reduce inflammation in the body.
3. Helps Keep Your Bones Strong
Another fact of aging is that our bone density reduces. This can cause brittle bones and osteoporosis (it's more common for women).
One of the best ways to ensure you don't lose bone density is to take regular exercise.
When you put your body under strain through weight training, it needs to repair the muscle. This repair process also sends nutrients to your bones and helps them become stronger. It's just one of the numerous benefits of exercise.
4. Muscles Support Your Joints
Is it painful for you to walk long distances, or do you regularly get injured when you play sport? It could be because you don't have trained muscles.
When you build muscle strength, it helps support your joints, ligaments, and tendons. If the muscles holding your joints in place are strong, you are less likely to get an injury or feel pain when you exercise.
5. Building Muscle Helps Reduce Your Body Fat
When you build muscle, you will lose fat. Muscle burns more calories than fat, so the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolic rate.
Having a high body fat percentage can put you at risk of heart disease and diabetes, and many other chronic illnesses.
Strength training is an effective way to lose weight and a great way to maintain a healthy weight that will reduce your risk of disease.
Remember that one of the ways to build muscle and lose fat is to assess your diet. Eating a varied and balanced diet with plenty of high-quality protein will help you build muscle quickly.
6. Helps to Lower Your Blood Sugar Levels
The importance of exercising shouldn't be underestimated when it comes to maintaining your blood sugar levels.
When you train with weights, your body can better regulate your blood sugar and store carbohydrates. When you can't store carbs, you turn them into fat, and your blood sugar level spikes and drops. This may lead to diabetes.
7. Building Muscle is Good for Your Mental Health
When you have a regular workout routine, it boosts your mood and releases endorphins. Exercise also has numerous cognitive benefits.
Not only does training your muscles make you feel good after the workout, but it can also boost your self-esteem. Regular training has the positive side effects of fat loss, making you look leaner and healthier.
8. Improves Your Overall Mobility
If you strength train regularly, you'll notice that you have better balance and overall mobility.
Having strong muscles reduces your risk of injury or falls as you get older.
Reap the Benefits of Building Muscle
Now that you know why building muscle is so great for your overall wellbeing, why not adopt some strength training into your fitness routine?
You can use muscle-building tips from a personal trainer. It's difficult to give generic advice, as everyone's routine for building muscle should be different. It all depends on your age, goals, current fitness levels, and any other health issues you may have.
As a general rule, you should incorporate strength training into your life at least two or three times a week.
You'll also need to eat adequate protein to build muscle and lose fat.
Incorporate Strength Training as Part of a Healthy Lifestyle
Making lifestyle changes can be difficult. Making the step from doing no exercise at all to strength training twice a week is a big jump.
Make small, slow, subtle changes bit by bit if you want to live a healthier and more active life. If you want to feel the benefits of building muscle, you'll need to make small steps towards strength training.
From taking the stairs more regularly to eating more fresh fruit and veggies, the small actions impact significant change.
If you'd like more help adopting a healthy lifestyle, check out our wellbeing courses that help you make sustainable changes.
Jay Todtenbier is an original founder of SupplementRelief.com in 2010 and has operated the business ever since. He is also a tennis instructor and gospel musician. Formerly he spent 25 years in business development, technology and marketing with startups and major corporations having gone through the tech boom in Silicon Valley in the 90s. He became passionate about, and began studying and practicing Wellness as a Lifestyle after experiencing chronic, personal health challenges including depression, auto-immune disorders, and being overweight that impacted his ability to live a healthy, vibrant life. Since then, he has been an advocate for healthier living encouraging others to live better through making small, gradual changes to lifestyle behaviors relating to whole-foods nutrition, stress management, reasonable exercise, proper sleep, and the use of targeted, high-quality supplements.
Learn more about Jay Todtenbier.
Related Content
We encourage you to take advantage of these FREE Wellness Resources on our website.
10 Reasons Why Lean Body Mass is Important
One of the best ways to reduce fat and stay healthy is to build lean body mass. As we age, our muscle mass starts to decline rapidly, leading to physical and cognitive deterioration. Due to the rapid decline in muscle mass, most of us begin to gain fat easier as we age.
A Stay at Home Wellness Guide: Exercise
Physical activity is a great way to facilitate better health and reduce stress. While we are spending more time at home, consider these suggestions to alter activities you are likely already doing, to provide more movement in your daily routines.
Affordable Home Fitness Equipment and Exercises for Adults
The benefits of regular exercise are endless. Not only does it keep us physically healthy, but it also impacts our mental health. In addition, exercise is proven to reduce our risk of developing chronic illnesses and diseases such as diabetes and dementia.
Boost Your Metabolism and Burn Fat Faster
Burning fat primarily comes down to maintaining a calorie deficit so your body has to rely on fat storage for fuel. Your body burns between 1,500 and 2,500 calories a day just by being alive, but there's a lot you can do to increase that number.
Can You Burn Fat While You Sleep?
You may know that energy burns fat. Being active and eating right helps guide our metabolism towards weight loss. A factor we don't often consider, however, is that your body is also able to burn fat while you sleep. For many, it may sound too good to be true. And you may be thinking that you already get decent sleep, so why am I not losing weight? Though you can't depend on sleep for an overall weight-loss plan, there are tips and tricks that will support healthy sleep patterns and in turn, additional weight loss.
How to Boost Your Immune System for COVID
Is it possible to boost your immune system naturally? The short answer is yes; there are many simple lifestyle changes we can make to improve the health of our immune system.
How to Use Macronutrients in Your Diet
We all need macronutrients to stay healthy. But what are they and how can you use a macronutrient diet? The amount of macronutrients you get in your diet is important but so is the source of those macros.
In this article, we'll explain the difference between micronutrients and macronutrients and how to build a healthy diet.
Making Healthy Lifestyle Behavioral Change
Making any significant change in life is hard. Most of our behaviors, whether healthy or not, are learned from the people and environments we associate with. Overtime our behaviors (whether unhealthy or healthy) have real consequences to our health and well-being. While change is often hard, it is achieve-able and worth it.
Our Immune System Health & Lifestyle Choices
Most people know that the immune system is responsible for fighting off pathogens and ensuring ongoing good health, but few are aware of the interaction between the immune system and the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. This relationship is mediated by a complex community of gut bacteria, known collectively as the gut microbiome.
Learn more about how our lifestyle choices affect our immune health and practical things we can do to live better today.
Vitamin D and Mental Health
Vitamin D is commonly known as the 'sunshine vitamin.' This is simply because, when exposed to the sun, our bodies produce the vitamin. Let's take a look at what the science shows about how this vital vitamin impacts our mental health.
What's a Sedentary Lifestyle? The Risks Plus the Benefits of Exercise
Are you living a sedentary lifestyle? Many of us are. We don't move our bodies as much as we used to. Here's why a sedentary lifestyle can be bad for your health and simple, positive lifestyle changes to help improve your life.
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Blog Post
More than 60% of the USA population do no form of strength training, which is a worryingly high proportion of the population. Strength training and building muscle are essential for maintaining overall health and wellbeing.
1. Gaining Muscle Makes You Strong
It may sound obvious, but strength training is essential if you want to have a strong and healthy body. Building muscle improves your overall physical fitness and helps you build stamina.
When you lift weights, it improves your ability to do any physical activity and your ability to recover from a workout. You will gradually progress and after a few months of strength training, notice that you can lift heavier weights and not find it so hard to work out.
As you age, your muscle mass decreases. After the age of 30, you can lose between 3% and 5% of your muscle mass each decade.
One of the most effective ways to stop the loss of muscle mass as you get older is to do some form of strength training. Whether it's lifting weights, using resistance bands, or your body weight, don't underestimate the importance of exercising as you age.
2. Boosts Your Immune System
Building muscle means you have to be physically active. It is well known that regular exercise can help strengthen your immune system and keep your body strong and healthy.
Those with higher levels of muscle mass tend to have a better immune response to certain illnesses and can help to reduce inflammation in the body.
3. Helps Keep Your Bones Strong
Another fact of aging is that our bone density reduces. This can cause brittle bones and osteoporosis (it's more common for women).
One of the best ways to ensure you don't lose bone density is to take regular exercise.
When you put your body under strain through weight training, it needs to repair the muscle. This repair process also sends nutrients to your bones and helps them become stronger. It's just one of the numerous benefits of exercise.
4. Muscles Support Your Joints
Is it painful for you to walk long distances, or do you regularly get injured when you play sport? It could be because you don't have trained muscles.
When you build muscle strength, it helps support your joints, ligaments, and tendons. If the muscles holding your joints in place are strong, you are less likely to get an injury or feel pain when you exercise.
5. Building Muscle Helps Reduce Your Body Fat
When you build muscle, you will lose fat. Muscle burns more calories than fat, so the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolic rate.
Having a high body fat percentage can put you at risk of heart disease and diabetes, and many other chronic illnesses.
Strength training is an effective way to lose weight and a great way to maintain a healthy weight that will reduce your risk of disease.
Remember that one of the ways to build muscle and lose fat is to assess your diet. Eating a varied and balanced diet with plenty of high-quality protein will help you build muscle quickly.
6. Helps to Lower Your Blood Sugar Levels
The importance of exercising shouldn't be underestimated when it comes to maintaining your blood sugar levels.
When you train with weights, your body can better regulate your blood sugar and store carbohydrates. When you can't store carbs, you turn them into fat, and your blood sugar level spikes and drops. This may lead to diabetes.
7. Building Muscle is Good for Your Mental Health
When you have a regular workout routine, it boosts your mood and releases endorphins. Exercise also has numerous cognitive benefits.
Not only does training your muscles make you feel good after the workout, but it can also boost your self-esteem. Regular training has the positive side effects of fat loss, making you look leaner and healthier.
8. Improves Your Overall Mobility
If you strength train regularly, you'll notice that you have better balance and overall mobility.
Having strong muscles reduces your risk of injury or falls as you get older.
Reap the Benefits of Building Muscle
Now that you know why building muscle is so great for your overall wellbeing, why not adopt some strength training into your fitness routine?
You can use muscle-building tips from a personal trainer. It's difficult to give generic advice, as everyone's routine for building muscle should be different. It all depends on your age, goals, current fitness levels, and any other health issues you may have.
As a general rule, you should incorporate strength training into your life at least two or three times a week.
You'll also need to eat adequate protein to build muscle and lose fat.
Incorporate Strength Training as Part of a Healthy Lifestyle
Making lifestyle changes can be difficult. Making the step from doing no exercise at all to strength training twice a week is a big jump.
Make small, slow, subtle changes bit by bit if you want to live a healthier and more active life. If you want to feel the benefits of building muscle, you'll need to make small steps towards strength training.
From taking the stairs more regularly to eating more fresh fruit and veggies, the small actions impact significant change.
If you'd like more help adopting a healthy lifestyle, check out our wellbeing courses that help you make sustainable changes.
AuthorJay Todtenbier is an original founder of SupplementRelief.com in 2010 and has operated the business ever since. He is also a tennis instructor and gospel musician. Formerly he spent 25 years in business development, technology and marketing with startups and major corporations having gone through the tech boom in Silicon Valley in the 90s. He became passionate about, and began studying and practicing Wellness as a Lifestyle after experiencing chronic, personal health challenges including depression, auto-immune disorders, and being overweight that impacted his ability to live a healthy, vibrant life. Since then, he has been an advocate for healthier living encouraging others to live better through making small, gradual changes to lifestyle behaviors relating to whole-foods nutrition, stress management, reasonable exercise, proper sleep, and the use of targeted, high-quality supplements.
Learn more about Jay Todtenbier.
-
Related Content
Related Content
We encourage you to take advantage of these FREE Wellness Resources on our website.
10 Reasons Why Lean Body Mass is Important
One of the best ways to reduce fat and stay healthy is to build lean body mass. As we age, our muscle mass starts to decline rapidly, leading to physical and cognitive deterioration. Due to the rapid decline in muscle mass, most of us begin to gain fat easier as we age.
A Stay at Home Wellness Guide: Exercise
Physical activity is a great way to facilitate better health and reduce stress. While we are spending more time at home, consider these suggestions to alter activities you are likely already doing, to provide more movement in your daily routines.
Affordable Home Fitness Equipment and Exercises for Adults
The benefits of regular exercise are endless. Not only does it keep us physically healthy, but it also impacts our mental health. In addition, exercise is proven to reduce our risk of developing chronic illnesses and diseases such as diabetes and dementia.
Boost Your Metabolism and Burn Fat Faster
Burning fat primarily comes down to maintaining a calorie deficit so your body has to rely on fat storage for fuel. Your body burns between 1,500 and 2,500 calories a day just by being alive, but there's a lot you can do to increase that number.
Can You Burn Fat While You Sleep?
You may know that energy burns fat. Being active and eating right helps guide our metabolism towards weight loss. A factor we don't often consider, however, is that your body is also able to burn fat while you sleep. For many, it may sound too good to be true. And you may be thinking that you already get decent sleep, so why am I not losing weight? Though you can't depend on sleep for an overall weight-loss plan, there are tips and tricks that will support healthy sleep patterns and in turn, additional weight loss.
How to Boost Your Immune System for COVID
Is it possible to boost your immune system naturally? The short answer is yes; there are many simple lifestyle changes we can make to improve the health of our immune system.
How to Use Macronutrients in Your Diet
We all need macronutrients to stay healthy. But what are they and how can you use a macronutrient diet? The amount of macronutrients you get in your diet is important but so is the source of those macros.
In this article, we'll explain the difference between micronutrients and macronutrients and how to build a healthy diet.
Making Healthy Lifestyle Behavioral Change
Making any significant change in life is hard. Most of our behaviors, whether healthy or not, are learned from the people and environments we associate with. Overtime our behaviors (whether unhealthy or healthy) have real consequences to our health and well-being. While change is often hard, it is achieve-able and worth it.
Our Immune System Health & Lifestyle Choices
Most people know that the immune system is responsible for fighting off pathogens and ensuring ongoing good health, but few are aware of the interaction between the immune system and the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. This relationship is mediated by a complex community of gut bacteria, known collectively as the gut microbiome.
Learn more about how our lifestyle choices affect our immune health and practical things we can do to live better today.
Vitamin D and Mental Health
Vitamin D is commonly known as the 'sunshine vitamin.' This is simply because, when exposed to the sun, our bodies produce the vitamin. Let's take a look at what the science shows about how this vital vitamin impacts our mental health.
What's a Sedentary Lifestyle? The Risks Plus the Benefits of Exercise
Are you living a sedentary lifestyle? Many of us are. We don't move our bodies as much as we used to. Here's why a sedentary lifestyle can be bad for your health and simple, positive lifestyle changes to help improve your life.
The information, knowledge, and experience shared on this website is the opinion of SupplementRelief.com. This site and its content is intended to enhance your knowledge base as YOU MAKE YOUR OWN HEALTHCARE DECISIONS in partnership with your qualified health professional. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Any products referred to are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
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