By Samantha Watt
Health and fitness can come in all shapes and forms and with that it can sometimes feel like creating a fitness routine that is enjoyable and suited to your goals is an overwhelming thought; a constant clutter of is “Cardio best for weight loss?” and “how to build your summer body in six weeks” endlessly plague your social media feed.
Just as fashion trends change so does what exercise is most popular and ‘best’ for you. In the last couple of years, we’ve seen a sharp change in the ‘super skinny’ or ‘get shredded quick’ narrative and finally we are beginning to see more and more people swap the fad diets and intense regimes of cardio only for strength training where not only are people looking to build muscle but also focusing on how good becoming stronger feels.
Don’t get me wrong Cardiovascular training has a lot of benefits for your health and is super important for maintaining good heart health, but it might not be the answer to all your fitness goals. Let’s talk about why strength training might be perfect for you;
Weight Training will help you burn more calories every day – on paper you will burn more calories during a cardio session when we build more muscle, we burn more calories at rest! Meaning weight training can help improve our metabolism and who doesn’t want that!
Increases your bone density and protect our joints! – Strength training can increase bone density and decrease overall bone loss by helping to stimulate bone growth and increase the strength of existing bones. There are also benefits for our joints too! Your joints are vital for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Your knees, shoulders and hips are all vulnerable to injuries and weight training can help improve the stability and strength of joints!
Better quality of sleep! – We’re all guilty of not getting enough good quality sleep thanks to busy lives and scrolling online too late, but did you know that research has shown that strength training has been proved to improve sleep quality meaning less fatigue during the day and helping improve our physical and mental wellbeing.
Enhance your quality of daily life out of the gym too! – Strength training will not only have you feeling super strong in the gym but it will improve your ability to do everyday activities, I mean who doesn’t want to be able to carry all their food shopping bags into the house in one go?! Building muscle can also contribute to better balance and may reduce your risk of falls.
Starting to strength train can feel a little like a minefield and gym anxiety is a real thing! If you think that you would like to start your journey on becoming the strongest version of you, I would love to help you!
Interested? You can contact Sam via her Instagram site…@liftwithsamantha or email her at samanthawatt4@hotmail.com