One question I have gotten over the years is, “Why do I have to lift weights if I already do cardio?” Sometimes I don’t even know where to start with this, but I will do my best here to try. Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly many benefits to cardiovascular exercise like walking, running or cycling and I know that I definitely enjoy those activities as well. This is not going to be about the reasons why you shouldn’t do cardio, because you absolutely should. What I will highlight though are the reasons why cardio alone is not enough, especially as we age. Let me preface this by saying that I am not a doctor. I am not a health researcher, nor do I claim to be the authority on any of these things. But, in my clinical experience as a nurse and my practical experience as a mid-life woman who has dealt with many of her own issues, I can safely say that I have some idea what I’m talking about. Besides, much of what I am about to say is “common knowledge,” or so I’d like to think. Read below for my top 5 reasons why if you are a living, breathing human, young or old, man or woman you shouldn’t be afraid of hitting the weights.
- Skeletal muscle increases metabolism and aids in higher calorie burn on a daily basis.
Let’s break this one down. When someone engages in say running for 30 minutes, they might burn 300 calories and that’s great. However, for the most part once that person stops running, so does the calorie burn. Adversely, when someone roughly my size lifts weights for that same 30 minute period, they only burn 150 calories. The main difference here lies in the muscle. When we build muscle, our bodies require more energy to fuel and therefore build that muscle, resulting in a higher calorie burn rate, even while at rest, otherwise termed your resting metabolic rate. So long after you put the weights down and especially for the 72 hours after your session, your body is still burning calories faster and more efficiently than it would with cardiovascular exercise. Done right, that 30 minute weight training session can burn closer to 450 calories, and of course the more muscle you build, the more efficiently your body works to burn calories.
2. Skeletal muscle makes us more resilient to a host of aches, pains, injuries and orthopedic issues.
Back pain anyone? I can’t even tell you how many patients I have seen post-neck or back surgery, and the one thing they had in common was they were mostly inactive individuals with little to no muscle mass. Think about it. Your neck, spine and all of the other bones in your body are supported by your muscles. Think of our bones as the framework, but our muscles are the concrete. A house would hardly be very sturdy if it were just made of nailed together wooden beams. Our muscles hold us up. They lift and support our bones so that they don’t collapse in on one another, because when they do, well hello bone spurs and arthritis. Bonjour degenerative joint disease, disk compression and sciatica. Oh and let’s not forget falls, a leading cause of disability and sometimes death in the elderly population. Is weight lifting the solution to all of this, no. But it certainly helps a lot. It builds that beautiful concrete layer that we need to support our frames. It improves balance, reaction time, increases cushion and improves grip strength (a metric used in determining longevity and health span) so that if we do fall, we have a better chance at mitigating it or, at the very least, falling gracefully. In addition, weight bearing activity helps to increase bone density, making a fall or injury less likely to result in bone fractures or breaks. It is also a lower impact option than something like running which can start to break things down and cause strain over time. Are there certain conditions, injuries or limitations that weight lifting can hurt or exacerbate, absolutely, but most of the time this isn’t the case. If you’re worried that you may have something that could be exacerbated or hurt, talk to your doctor about it. Odds are you will get the all clear to engage in some sort of strength training regimen. What do you think physical therapy is and why most insurance companies and physicians recommend trying PT before pain management or surgery?
3. Muscle helps to promote metabolic health and healthy blood sugar levels.
Did you know that 1 in 10 adults worldwide have developed or have a risk of developing diabetes in their lifetime? I don’t know about you, but I don’t love these odds, and unfortunately this number is only going up. I see many diabetic patients in my clinical practice, and even though it sounds harmless enough, it is by far one of the most life-altering diagnoses there is. It requires dietary changes and “counting carbs,” frequent blood monitoring and needle-sticks, oral medications that come with a host of unpleasant side effects. It impairs healing and immunity and long-term can have negative effects on our vision and vitals organs. Diabetes is no joke, and if we don’t take the necessary steps to reduce our risk, any one of use can develop insulin resistance and eventually diabetes. Again, cardiovascular exercise does also help to maintain healthy blood glucose levels and staving off diabetes as, if done often enough, it helps us to maintain a healthier weight and reduce obesity as a modifiable risk factor. But, as very well established in medical research (linked below) skeletal muscle is the largest and most primary organ of GLUT4 responsible for glucose uptake and transport, meaning when we have more skeletal muscle, we are more efficiently able to use the sugar we eat without it just building up in our bloodstreams. I could go down the rabbit hole of all the mechanisms in which muscle helps to effectively combat insulin resistance and diabetes, but in the interest of time, I have posted a link below to a published medical article outlining these mechanisms in detail if you want to know more (or need more convincing and don’t just want to take my word for it.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6835691
4. It also helps to balance both male and female sex hormones.
When we think of weight lifting, let’s admit it, we think of men and their testosterone. But did you know that women also have necessary levels of testosterone too, and when insufficient, just like in men, we can suffer from symptoms like low energy, poor mood or concentration and low libido or sex drive? The most common complaint I hear from women in their mid-thirties and forties is about their hormones being out of whack. Well, you know what I’m going to say. Strength training helps to regulate and improve sex hormone levels (estrogen, progesterone and testosterone) in both men and women. It also increases the production of HGH (Human Growth Hormone) naturally which promotes fat loss, muscle building and again, better blood sugar regulation. Plainly put, if you want to feel strong, have energy and a good sex drive, pick up a dumbbell.
5. Low skeletal muscle has been linked to increased risk for dementia and cognitive impairment.
I don’t know about you, but this one is a no-brainer (pun intended.) However, to really understand this one, there really isn’t a way to do so without getting super technical, so what I will say about this is that adequate skeletal muscle helps to produce substances that cross into the blood-brain barrier that help to decrease inflammation and again, the build up of sugar and oxidative stress in the brain. Simply put, more muscle = less brain inflammation. Below is another link with more information on the specific mechanisms by which this occurs, so feel free to read on.
https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/article/77/10/1959/6602136
So, main my mine takeaways… If you want to burn more fat, improve metabolic and hormone health, stave off physical decline or injury and decrease your chances of developing dementia, build as much muscle as you can, as early as you can. The only better time to start than yesterday, is today.