Being active and exercising is important to anyone’s health, no matter their age. It’s not just for the younger population. If anything, it’s almost more important to be active as we age so we move well, stay strong, and maintain good health.
Resistance training, also called strength training or weight training, is the use of resistance using weights, body weight, bands or anything that creates muscular contraction to improve strength, endurance, and increase the size of our muscles.
This is not everyone’s cup of tea, due to the impression that it is about lifting heavy weights or doing things we don’t think we are capable of doing. But resistance training is a progressive process that if done correctly will allow you to enjoy it and want to make it a part of your healthy lifestyle.
The benefits of resistance training span across almost all of the components of wellness — physical, mental, emotional, social, and intellectual.
Besides the physical component, it creates so many positive changes to our emotional and mental state, and, if you go to a gym, you’ll be training in a very social environment. Resistance training helps us with our intellect because we learn something about ourselves we may not have known before; we learn how to do something different or challenge ourselves by connecting mind and muscle.
There are so many reasons we should do resistance training as we hit midlife and beyond. Here are some of the most important benefits that should make us all want to go hit the gym:
- Elevates our moods
- Helps us deal with stress better
- Can improve our quality of sleep
- Improves balance
- Improves strength
- Improves and ensures the strength of our bones
- Improves anaerobic endurance — the energy system used in resistance training that will also in turn help improve our aerobic endurance
- Helps decrease the risks of metabolic syndrome, which includes a cluster of symptoms like high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol levels, high blood sugar levels, and high levels of visceral fat
- Can help with hormone balance if not overdone
- Improves body image and allows us to reconnect to our bodies
- Can help with improving digestion
- Helps improve mobility and movement patterns
- Improves posture
These are benefits for anyone of any age, but as we hit midlife, there are certain health risks that can increase if we do not add resistance training to our lifestyle:
- Our posture can become worse due to years of sitting or doing certain movement patterns all the time (due to our jobs, hobbies or sports)
- Our balance will get challenged due to weaker core, glutes and legs
- Our ability to handle stress decreases
- Our muscle mass can decrease due to lower levels of certain hormones that happens at midlife
- As we age, our feelings about life can be overwhelming, so doing what we can to elevate mood is key
- Lower levels of hormones, especially in women at midlife, can challenge our ability to absorb calcium, which can lead to weaker bones
- Our body image can change as we age. By doing resistance training, we can improve it and increase our confidence
If you have never done resistance training, it’s important to create a plan with a professional who can give you a progressive plan that allows you to introduce your body to something new without creating injury or boredom and will ensure consistency.
You should be challenged but you also need to enjoy it. If you try to do something your body isn’t ready for, it can lead to dreading resistance training or creating a bad relationship with it. This is why we might end up starting and stopping these new routines.
It helps if you do an activity you enjoy or want to learn, then base resistance training around trying to improve mobility, strength, and endurance for that activity. For example, if you enjoy or want to try tennis, cycling, pickleball, boxing, or golfing, resistance training will help improve your performance in those sports. This gives purpose to your resistance training, keeping you more engaged and motivated.
Consistency is key if you want to improve your health. If you create a plan that is progressive, you will see continuous results. Be honest about your commitment to resistance training (e.g. how many times a week, length of workout, starting where you are and not where you want to be), and you will be surprised at the benefits you’ll feel and how you end up enjoying it.
