Many women shy away from strength training and tend to prioritize doing hours of cardio. Some cardio has its benefits but strength training hands down has the most benefits especially when a woman is over 40 and wants to lose weight, keep that weight off and slowing down their biological aging clock.
In fact if a woman is not doing some form of effective strength training then she will have a much harder time achieving or maintaining a healthy body composition as she ages and her biological aging clock will be speeding up.
Muscle is not just to help us get from point A to point B it is actually metabolically active and is the biggest predictor of people being able to manage their body composition well and without a doubt the biggest predictor of how long and how well a person will age.
We naturally start losing muscle after the age of 30 so unless a person is intentionally doing resistance training and eating enough protein to stop this loss they will have lost a lot of muscle over time which slows down their metabolic rate hence why women say they are prone to putting on weight, despite eating well.
Muscle mass is strongly associated with healthy aging, less risk of all cause mortality and it directly impacts quality of life in our later years. For women in particular because they are prone to accelerated bone loss due to the hormonal changes with menopause, it is even more important they are doing strength training. The bones will respond to any force put on them such as when we strength train and this results in less bone loss and even enhanced bone strength.
Read about all the amazing benefits of strength training.
Read on to learn 9 benefits of strength training for women, and then use them to identify your “why” for embarking on this journey.
1. Enhance Overall Mood
Strength and resistance training help anxiety and depression by targeting the same systems that cause them. This goes especially for neurotransmitters and neurotrophic and growth factors (the growth of your nervous tissue).
On a chemical level, exercise can increase your body’s dopamine for 30-90 minutes after exercise, and there are reasons to believe that regular exercise can improve your body’s overall production of the “happy” chemical.
The same goes for serotonin and norepinephrine, which both work to regulate anxiety, energy, and overall attentiveness.
2. Reduced Risk of Injury
Strength training helps build muscle, but it also helps strengthen bone density, which reduces the risk of breaks and fractures.
Building a strong back and core can also help correct posture and prevent lower back pain.
3. Less Chance of Osteoporosis
As we’ve already talked about, strength training — especially resistance training — can increase your bone density. This density can also lead to lowered chances of osteoporosis.
Osteoporosis is a condition that causes the bones in your body to become weak and brittle, which makes them prone to breakage. Osteoporosis-related breaks and fractures are most likely to happen in the wrist, hip, or spine, and women are more likely to break a bone this way than men. As women get older often it is that “hip fracture” that becomes a tipping point in their quality of life with potential loss of independence. It may seem far away in years but this process of bone loss takes years to happen and the good news is by starting at a younger age you can prevent this from happening.
4. Build Without the Bulk
Whether or not you see this is as a benefit or setback is up to you, but women can strength train without building the bulk that men so often have. This is one of the reasons many women avoid doing weight training or if they do weight training they just want to lift smaller lighter weights. To truly get the benefits of resistance training women and men need to do progressive loading of weights to reach the point of complete fatigue, the muscles will rebuild stronger.
Women do not “bulk” up the way men do because of hormone differences. It has to do with the amount of testosterone that the female body produces. Since levels of this hormone are so much lower in women than it is in men, they are less likely to build the same amount of muscle mass.
Testosterone is responsible for added muscle mass because it increases the levels of growth hormone in a person’s body, making it possible to build more muscle.
5. Reduced Risk of Heart Disease and Diabetes
Strength training is also great for your heart health. It has been shown to decrease the risk of heart disease and type-2 diabetes.
Pairing strength training with some cardio, focused on High Intensity Interval Training, will dramatically impact risks of heart disease and diabetes as one ages.
6. Increased Flexibility
Strength training can also increase your flexibility. Resistance training is similar to stretching your muscles and has been shown to improve flexibility in the same way.
7. Improved Athletic Ability
Whether it’s biking longer distances or increasing your golf drive, strength training leads to improved athletic ability.
It increases your stamina and endurance, meaning you can perform better in any activity you choose to partake in. This makes all these activities more fun and less frustrating because of aches and pains and fatigue.
8. Burns Fat Faster Than Cardio
Many people turn to running when they want to lose weight and burn fat, but strength training is actually where it’s at.
Not only have studies and research shown that you burn more calories in the hour following weight training than you do cardio, but that your resting metabolism can stay elevated for up to 38 hours later. Weight training and having more muscle also directly impacts insulin and how our body manages sugar long term which helps control body composition.
Cardio has shown no similar results.
9. Self-Empowerment
Perhaps the biggest benefit of strength training (no matter your gender or age): the amount of self-empowerment you feel after each and every session.
Now, not every day is going to be great, and there might be days where you feel like giving up or staying in bed, but the results themselves are worth it.
Strength training provides a tangibility that many forms of exercise and self-improvement don’t. When the weight you can lift goes up, and you can see how this strength is translating into everyday life, you’re only going to want to keep going.
Remember These Benefits of Strength Training For Women
Remembering the benefits of strength training for women can serve as a form of motivation for the days you might not feel like working out. Strength training works to not only improve your physical strength but also your mental health!
Just think, with every strength training workout you will feel the difference when you move and you will be literally adding more years to life and vitality to your years.
Many of our habits will impact our longevity and vitality for decades to come but increasing muscle mass and strength will have the most dramatic impact and you just need to do it 2 times/week.
Want to do a self-assessment to see how your current habits are either accelerating your aging or slowing it down? Then do my free, 3 minute long Longevity and Vitality Quotient Assessment. You will get your results right away along with recommendations based upon your scores for each lifestyle category being assessed. It is free and will only take 3 minutes of your time.