Health Benefits of Weight Training

Posted on by Jesse Santiano, M.D.

What Is Resistance Training?

Resistance training is muscle contraction against an external force. Weight training using barbells, weight machines, and bodyweight exercises are all resistance exercises. For this article, we will focus on barbell training and the effect on the different organ systems. 

EarlyBarbell
Arthur Saxon performing a Two Hands Anyhow with an early kettlebell and plate-loaded barbell.

Central Nervous System – The Brain

  1. Improves cognition and strength.  High‐intensity progressive resistance exercise (PRT) results in significant improvements in cognitive function, muscle strength, and aerobic capacity in older adults with early dementia.
  2. Prevents Alzheimer’s Dementia. Alzheimer’s is now called Type 3 Diabetes because of its close association with Type 2 diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome.
  3. More brain cells produced (neurogenesis)
  4. Brain cells are transformed (neuroplasticity) for the better
  5. Increases brain (cerebral blood flow)
  6. Decreases damage to the brain by free radicals
  7. Increases Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF). BDNF helps support the survival of existing brain cells (neurons), and encourage the growth and differentiation of new neurons and connections between nerve cells. The more connections between brain cells, the better.
  8. Increases insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-1) which is essential for the changing functional demands of learning and memory

Mental  Health

This review, Mental Health Benefits of Strength Training in Adults, studied multiple trials, and this is what they conclude:

  1. The weight of the available evidence supported the conclusion that strength training is associated with reductions in anxiety symptoms among healthy adults (5 trials);
  2. Reductions in pain intensity among patients with low back pain (5 tests), osteoarthritis (8 trials), and fibromyalgia (4 investigations);
  3. Improvements in cognition among older adults (7 trials);
  4. Improvements in sleep quality among depressed older adults (2 studies);
  5. Reductions in symptoms of depression among patients with diagnosed depression (4 tests) and fibromyalgia (2 tests);
  6. Reductions in fatigue symptoms (10 kinds of research); and
  7. Improvements in self-esteem (6 investigations).

Cardiovascular

  1. As dyslipidemia is corrected, the damage to the lining of the arteries is mitigated
  2. Pro autophagy: Autophagy is the first step when remodeling old muscle cells that are essential for small and weak cells to be replaced by bigger muscle cells.
  3. Pro-apoptotic resistance training up-regulates muscle apoptosis promoting regeneration of new skeletal muscles
  4. Increases HDL that reverses atherosclerosis by cholesterol efflux
  5.  Stimulates Nitric Oxide production that expands the arteries and lowers the blood pressure
  6. Promotes normal (physiologic) enlargement (hypertrophy) of the heart leading to more efficient contraction.

CG_Heart

Insulin Resistance, Diabetes

  1. Makes the glucose transporter, Glut 4, more efficient to delivers more glucose into the muscle from the bloodstream, therefore, improving diabetes. The skeletal muscle is the largest glucose burning organ in the body.
  2. Burns visceral fat that produces the pro-inflammatory cytokines and reverses the metabolic syndrome
  3. Lower blood sugar lowers triglycerides, total cholesterol. Improves dyslipidemia
  4. Helps reverse insulin resistance making the body more sensitive to the actions of insulin and lowers the blood sugar.
  5. Increases the power supply (mitochondria) of the cells for increased metabolic endurance.

Musculoskeletal System

  1. Stimulates satellite cells to add more nucleus and enlarges the muscles fibers.
  2. Increased muscle fibers in size (hypertrophy) and number (hyperplasia)  produces stronger contractions.
  3. Bones absorb more calcium to make thicker and stronger bones.
  4. Activates the different hormones like IGF-1 and adrenaline that have critical effects on muscle growth.
  5. Utilize the Type 2 muscle fibers that use more glucose and burns more visceral fat to replace the muscle glycogen.
  6. Increases overall physical performance, including strength, agility, speed, balance, power.
  7. Increases testosterone and growth hormones for skeletal muscle maintenance.

No pharmaceutical agent can compare to the preventive and therapeutic effects of resistance training.

If you want to know more about how physical activity affects life span, read Physical Activity Correlates with Life Span

How Does Exercise Prolong Life? Discusses the mechanisms about how physical activity and exercise promotes health.

Thanks for reading.

Related:

  1. Physical Activity Correlates with Life Span
  2. How Does Exercise Prolong Life?
  3. Myokines: An Introduction
  4. Make that Game Winning Shot that at the Buzzer!
  5. How Does Exercise Prolong Life?
  6. The Benefits of Resistance Training
  7. The Surprising Benefits of Sweating
  8. The Good and Faithful Servant
  9. Effect of Short Term Exercise on Mortality
  10. What are Exerkines?
  11. Exercise Guidelines
  12. Why do You Need an Excellent Performance Status?
  13. Exercise and Neurogenesis
  14. How to Perform High-Intensity Interval Training
  15. How to Get Physically Active

Photo Credits:

  • Arthur Saxon By Unknown – First uploaded on the English-speaking Wikipedia under the same filename, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37703644
  • Pumping Heart By DrJanaOfficial – Official Website, Support, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50477765

 

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