For many people who work out, “building muscle” is not a goal.
In fact, many people, especially women, may feel turned off by this. There is no reason for women to fear building muscle. With low testosterone, it is much more difficult for women to build muscle than men. That “bulky” figure that women are so concerned about building takes major effort to obtain, and women who DO build muscle, primarily build a strong, curvy physique that is a generally desirable look.
But why should you care about building and maintaining muscle if you are not interested in it for physique purposes? I’d like to chat about some of the major health benefits that might make building muscle a more desirable goal for you.
- Increased Metabolism
For the sake of simplicity, your metabolism refers to how many calories you burn in a day, both at rest, during exercise, and throughout your daily activities. Muscle requires more energy than fat to maintain, so simply having muscle on your body increases the calories you expend in a day. Fat is highly inactive when it comes to metabolism. - Increase Your Energy, Mood, + Sleep
Fat stores energy, whereas muscle uses up energy and increases the energy output of your body. Fatigue is a primary symptom of diabetes, but when we build muscle, we will increase our daily energy, more able to handle our everyday tasks. Strength training sessions put us in a good mood, helping us feel accomplished and proud. With more regulated energy levels, and decreased stress, this type of exercise is also well known to improve overall sleep quality. - Improve Blood Sugar Levels
Muscle helps increase insulin sensitivity and reduces blood sugar levels by removing sugar from the blood and sending it to muscle cells. One study showed a 30% reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes in women who engaged in strength training vs. those who did not. - Lower Risk of Injury
A well-rounded strength training program will often help reduce any general muscular imbalances that occur throughout your everyday life, which increase the risk of injury because muscle imbalances often change the path of motion for a joint during movement. While building muscle we are also improving our balance and stability, and even increasing the reaction time of our muscle fibers, which can help prevent us from falling. We also thicken our tendons when we build muscle, which helps protect them from injury. - Increase Bone Density
Bones are connected to muscle through tendons. When a muscle contracts and generates force, the tendon pulls on the bone. This pull is perceived as stress and stimulates bone growth. Research shows that strength training has the greatest effect on bone mass of all activities. - Improve Your Joints
Strengthening the muscles surrounding your joints will help protect your joints so that they can correctly do their job. - Strengthen Your Heart
Many studies have shown that strength training can decrease blood pressure, lower bad cholesterol and improve blood circulation by strengthening the heart and blood vessels. - To Get Stronger
In general, when you build muscle, you are doing things that make you stronger. That strength transfers over into our everyday life, making all activities easier, such as bringing in the groceries, loading the canoe onto the truck, bringing storage bins out to the shed, lifting something onto the highest shelf and even sitting down on the toilet! - Increase Coordination
We engage our nervous system when muscles contract. Strength training teaches your muscles how to turn on and off, increasing the firing rate of our nerves, which allows you to better coordinate movements. Many of the movements that we do in the gym (that ultimately build muscle) require coordination. While performing and perfecting these movements, we gain a better sense of body awareness, and are more easily able to do the things we want our body to do without thinking too much about it. - Increase Blood Flow
Your muscles need oxygen to keep lifting, so your body sends blood to the muscles that are being worked, thus increasing our blood flow and ultimately improving our circulation.
You may have noticed some overlap or crossover in some of these benefits. Building muscle benefits the body as a whole, and a benefit in one area will help in others. I’d love to hear from you — what are your thoughts on this list? Did anything surprise you?
If you aren’t already a member of Inspire, fill out the form on the right to let us know you are ready to begin your strength training journey! We offer a free 7 day trial for new small group members!
Talk soon,
Carly Leasure, CPT, CNC, WLS
