When you think of hitting your fitness goals, you’ll likely think of something you can see, feel, or track. Gaining strength is something that you can feel and you are aware of when you are able to lift heavier weights. Losing fat is obvious when you look better in the mirror, your pants fit better, or you see your body composition results on your InBody 570 test. Same with gaining muscle, improving your cardiovascular endurance, and the list goes on and on.
There is so much more than meets the eye when it comes to the benefits of strength training. Your body is changing in ways that you aren’t aware of because you can’t see them or feel them. These hidden benefits of strength training are happening behind the scenes in ways that you can’t track or don’t even notice.
The Mental Hidden Benefits of Strength Training
Mental health is being focused on recently more than ever. There are so many medications, mindfulness sessions, therapy focuses, and other best practices becoming more popular. And for good reason. These best practices are easy to attribute to benefits in mental health. They are targeted practices that someone does for the purpose of mental health benefits, and when you have improvements in your mental health, you can easily give credit to them.
Strength training also provides mental benefits, but it is more under the radar because that often is not the focus of the strength training routine. You might start strength training to gain muscle or gain strength, and the mental health changes are just a bonus that you don’t even realize.
Studies have shown that strength training results in improved focus and cognitive function, less anxiety and greater well-being. If these aren’t your direct goals that you are adamantly tracking with journaling or other methods, you may not realize that things are improving for you, or that the reason they are is due to your exercise program.
There are other mental health benefits that come from physical changes in your brain. Improvements in mood are thanks to the greater release of endorphins , dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine from strength training. Improvements to handling stress, and just having lower overall stress, can be linked to improved regulation of cortisol levels. This results in calming your nervous system and having a more balanced emotional state. Then there are the mental health benefits from improved sleep. Strength training improves sleep quality and promotes deeper, more restful sleep.
All of these things can be improved in the background without much notice, and without being able to compare what life would be like without the improvements from strength training. It is impossible to know how stressed you would be without better cortisol regulation, or would you have had that many hours of deep sleep if you didn’t workout, or would you be as focused at work without greater release of chemicals in your brain from exercise.
Even with the perfect workout routine, your results are determined by your habits outside of the gym. The 4 keys to optimal health are to train right, eat right, rest right, and manage your stress right. It takes a balance of all 4 to get your optimal health. If you are working out, but don’t have the results you are striving for, you may just need to tweak your habits outside of the gym. We have a series of tips to help you get on track with your goals without overcomplicating things.
The Physical Hidden Benefits of Strength Training
There are many more physical benefits than what are shown in the mirror, on the scale, or in the gym. Some of which you’ll never be tested for, and some of which you might see from time-to-time in the doctor’s office. For example, bone density improvements can be seen on scans, but most of us aren’t getting regular checkups on bone density without a reason to.
Muscle is a special gland. The contraction of your muscles affects the expression of at least 400 genes. This process helps keep you younger by upregulating processes associated with youth, while down-regulating the breakdown processes that cause aging. Over time, you will be aging slower, looking younger, and it will be hard to pinpoint that this is all caused by your strength training routine. Nor do you have a magic mirror to show you the difference in aging that you would experience without exercise.
Muscle contractions also release power chemicals in your body called myokines. Myokines travel through your blood stream and signal every other organ in your body. More myokine release will equal less inflammation in your body.
Another benefit that can’t be measured by more than hypothetical thinking is injury prevention. If you fall and don’t get hurt, how can you possibly know if that was pure luck or all thanks to being stronger from your workouts? If you step awkwardly off the curb, you’ll never know for sure that your ankle isn’t sprained because you’ve gone to the gym. Strength training strengthens and grows your muscles, which are shock absorbers for your body. The more force that is applied to your muscles, the less force is absorbed by other body structures such as your ligaments and joints.
Discover The Hidden Benefits Of Strength Training For Yourself
There are so many more hidden benefits of strength training that we could talk about them until we are blue in the face. Unfortunately, they go unnoticed and aren’t typically the primary focus of one’s goals. So many people that don’t reach their body composition goals quit their workout routine because it “isn’t working”. The one thing they are hyperfocused on isn’t changing, so they give up.
The truth is, it’s always working. In ways that you don’t realize. Even when you find yourself disappointed in the changes you yearn for in your body in the mirror. There is so much more to life than meets the eye.
There is no pill, shortcut, or lifestyle change that can benefit your health better than exercise. At Rock Solid Fitness, we are unwavering in our belief that strength training is the best form of exercise for those benefits. If you want strength for life, and everything it throws at you, we encourage you to come in for a free workout with us. We’re conveniently located in Dunedin, and proudly serve members from all over Clearwater, Safety Harbor, Palm Harbor, and Oldsmar.
