Why every man should pull iron

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Is the barbell a hobby of the young? Oh well. Look at your hand. It contains 10% of all your muscle mass. Now imagine that all the muscles in the arm have disappeared. There are bones left, from which the skin hangs, and nothing else. This is exactly how much muscle mass a man loses from 24 to 50 years old. And by the age of 60, the same number. After walking a quarter of a century, a man begins to lose an average of 1% of muscle mass every year.

Nice fact: this only happens when a man does nothing to preserve his muscles.

With the withdrawal of muscles, bones, joints, and the spine weaken. The risk of diabetes, cardiovascular and other diseases increases. There are no obstacles to doing power sports even at 90 years old, if before that you constantly developed an important property of the body - resistance to aging. Strength sports is about resistance to aging. Lifting weights is a natural and strongest signal for the body not to lose, but rather to build up muscle mass. This opinion is shared by doctors of medical sciences, and we have no right to argue with them.

It is good for your health

Research conducted at the University of Michigan has shown one simple thing very clearly. Three basic workouts a week for two months - and your blood pressure drops by eight points. At age, this means minus 40% to the likelihood of a stroke.

It strengthens bones

With age, the bones of a man lose mass, and, accordingly, strength. At one point, this can lead to a fracture of the hip or damage to the spine. Mayo Clinic statistics show alarming data: 30% of aged men died within a year after a hip fracture. The weakening of the spine makes us look like the Quasimodo of the 21st century. Research published in the Journal of Applied Physiology reports a 3.8% increase in femur strength after 16 weeks of strength training. During the same time, the content of osteocalcin in the blood, a marker that speaks of the growth of bone tissue, increases by 19%.

It does not let you get fat

Every kilogram of muscle lost is replaced by a kilogram of fat. In the absence of strength training, your weight will not change, and the volume and flabbiness of the skin will increase significantly, since adipose tissue is 18% more voluminous than muscle.

It keeps flexibility

From 30 to 70 years of age, a man's joints can lose 20 to 50% of their flexibility. The same 16 weeks of training with three sessions per week increases hip and shoulder flexibility by 30%.

It reduces the harm of fast carbohydrates

When we eat foods with a lot of fast carbohydrates, our insulin rises. The problem is that high insulin itself contributes to diabetes and heart disease. The University of Massachusetts conducted a study in which men who added only two basic strength training per week to standard aerobic activity had 25% lower insulin after eating a fast-carb meal than those who only practiced aerobic training.

It remains valid

Muscles are made up of fast and slow fibers. The fast ones are explosive. Slow - endurance with multiple repetitions. Interestingly, with the loss of muscle tissue, the number of slow fibers is reduced by 25%, and fast - by as much as 50%. This is important, because every year we are losing precisely our strength and power, which makes any strength activity more and more difficult.

It speeds up the metabolism

Within an hour after training, the calories consumed are used to restore energy reserves in the muscles. To be more precise, during this period, 73% more calories will go to a useful cause, and not to the sides. Just two workouts a week for 18 weeks, and you will lose 11 kilograms of fat without changing your diet, provided that your body weight has been stable before.

It improves your mood

In 2004, the University of Alabama found that older men, after six months of strength training, which included three workouts per week, became less stressed, did not get confused as often, did not feel anger, and their general mood improved. The mechanism of the effect of strength training on mood has not yet been studied, but there is a completely logical explanation. When you made your body 10 years younger, lost 1.5 kilograms of fat and gained 2 kilograms of muscle, increasing your overall strength by 42%, you will somehow be in a good mood.

And finally.