The Benefits of Weight Training

(and how to stick with it)

Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash

Exercise: we’ve all considered it at one time or another. Whether it be a quick morning jog every day or hitting the gym five days a week to pump some iron, we all understand the importance of staying active. But if you’re like a lot of us (including me), you may have fallen into that same inconsistent cycle of psyching yourself up over a new routine, only to have that adrenaline slowly wane to the point where a skipped day becomes a skipped week. Sure, maybe you still find the motivation on a somewhat regular basis and are still feeling the benefits. But if your goal is to lose, or even gain in my case, a lot of weight, then you probably aren’t going to see those drastic results if you’re only managing an hour or two every fortnight. Hard-won results are just that; hard-won. And they often require just a little more motivation. Here’s a bit of info into the benefits of weight training, and how you can find and hold onto that much needed motivation.

In Pain After a Heavy Pump? Good.

Okay, by “pain” I don’t mean you just tried to dead-lift twice your body weight on the first go and absolutely destroyed your back with improper form. I’m talking about the burn you’re feeling in your bicep once you’ve pushed out that 11th rep when 10 seemed like all you had in you. It may feel quite uncomfortable at first, but I can promise you this: you’re going to learn to love it.

The thing about our muscles is they’re pretty complex. Without getting too complicated here, the muscles you work at the gym are all skeletal muscles. They consist of bundles of muscle fibers all joined together. When you force these muscles to work harder than they’re used to, you’re actually tearing the individual fibers that form them. This is where that pain comes from, and I know this sounds awful for them but you can relax, they’re built for it. When given the time to heal and recover after a workout, your body repairs these damaged fibers and increases their thickness. This is why rest is important after exercise, and why you should refrain from working the same muscle groups for about 48 hours. The more you work the same muscles, the thicker their fibers get, and in turn the larger and stronger your muscles become.