In the majority of cases, when one thinks of the advantages of weight lifting, one only thinks of the health implications. Rightly so, as bodybuilding has a direct impact on the body. Nevertheless, the benefits go beyond that.
Keep teenagers off drugs. Maybe turn them to steroids in the extreme case! But the idea is to keep them busy so they don’t try harmful things, get involved in gangs, crime and so on.
Learn how the human body works. By doing specific exercises for the bodyparts, you understand the function of each muscle and also feel it work. You are in tune with your body and learn how to make best use of it: legs are powerful muscles and you need to involve them to lift something heavy off the ground, instead of bending from the waist. You learn that the deltoids has 3 heads and is derived from the greek word delta because the deltoid looks like a triangle. You grasp the concept that your body is a human machine.
Respect your body. Learning how your body works will in turn teach you to respect it and treat it carefully. You know that if you slouch in a chair all day, it will affect your body; if you smoke, your fitness level will go down; if you break a leg, you will lose your hard-earned muscles while you recover. The top two advantages are related to keeping teenagers off drugs as weight training will also teach them the marvel of the human body and not to abuse it.
Feel good about yourself. As with other sports, physical exertion releases endorphin into the blood stream. This is a natural relaxant drug that helps to release stress from the body. You also feel victorious after achieving your goals or beating them. Imagine lifting just 1 kg more today than last week after being on a plateau for weeks. You’ll be in a good mood.
Guess weights more accurately. After doing biceps curls multiple times, you get to guess how much your suitcase weighs.
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If you were expecting the more conventional health benefits, here you go.
Become more powerful in your everyday life. You are able to carry shopping bags more easily, move furniture, even move yourself around with more ease. Do you see how some old people need help to get out of a chair?
No lower back pain. While there are many reasons for suffering from a lower back ache, in many cases stronger muscles in your core muscles will get rid of that.
Build stronger bones, tendons and ligaments. Building powerful muscles in themselves will not make the human body very strong but only as strong as the weakest link in a chain. Muscles are joined to the skeletal frame by means of tendons and ligaments. All are involved in moving charges. Even if they are strong enough, the bones must be able to support the weight. Women in particular will benefit from building denser bones as they are prone to suffer from osteoporosis in old age.
Loose fat easily. Let’s get one fact straight first. Lifting weights and building muscles won’t make you look ripped. Building muscles will make you look big! But muscles burn more calories than fat, even while you are sleeping nad resting. So building more muscles means building a bigger oven to burn this fat 24 hours a day. Weight lifting increases your metabolism and produces visible changes to your body more quickly than any other sports.
Fight diseases. Everyday new research comes up showing the benefits of weight lifting to fight all sorts of diseases and debilitating conditions, from cancer to Alzheimer. Sometimes you have to take this research with a pinch of salt but whether true or not, you have everything to gain.
Excel at sports. Today, all top-level sportsmen, even marathon runners, incorporate weight lifting into their training. They have realised the importance of a powerful body.