Contrary to popular belief, weight training does not make you bulky. I often hear this when I recommend or introduce weight training as a therapeutic for chronic disease or weight management. That’s right! Weight training is a recommended therapeutic for both chronic disease and weight management. I know this goes against a lot of what you’ve heard but it’s true. I will give you 1 reason why: the more muscle you have, the better your body metabolizes food (breaks food down into usable energy) and better metabolism equals better health.
Food for Bulk not Weights
Weight training alone will not make you look muscular, bulkier, or any more masculine than you already appear. You can maintain your femininity (ladies) and you can lean out (gentlemen) without looking big and bulky if you consistently weight train. Actually, consistent weight and resistance training improves our health and body functioning prior to it adding muscular bulk.
Our bodies appear bulky due to the amount of food we consume in conjunction with weightlifting, not weightlifting alone. It takes years of weightlifting and lots of calories for our muscles to naturally grow to the point where they appear bigger and bulkier. Let’s have a quick muscle physiology lesson: Weight and resistance training produces muscular strength and endurance prior to any visible muscle growth. Weight and resistance training causes our muscles to tear and the healing process from the tearing causes them to regenerate stronger and more durably enabling our body to keep up with the increased muscle usage demands when weight and resistance training consistently occurs. Increased muscle durability, endurance, and strength improves our body’s function.
Muscles for Function/Food for Fuel
Muscles have a plethora of functions but two of the main functions are movement, which is fueled by food/energy/calories, and storage of food/energy. Food is what aids in the muscle regeneration process. Food is our main source of energy and our muscles are the mechanisms that best utilize energy. The more effective our muscle’s function, the more efficiently we use energy. I can expound more on this but I will just get to my point: Weight and resistance training will give you exponential health benefits way before it makes you bulky. In fact, you may never get bulky from weight and resistance training. Let’s look at the benefits you may experience.
Benefits
Weight and resistance training has far reaching benefits such as protecting your joints from injury, improving balance, helping your body burn calories more efficiently, strengthening bones, improving appearance, etc. The benefits I want to expound on are the health benefits related to disease management and prevention. At H.E.A.L. Mississippi, we specialize in cardiometabolic diseases, which means we look at some of the health benefits weight and resistance training can provide for disease management.
Diabetes- Strength and resistance training helps manage your blood sugar levels as well as reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Muscle helps increase insulin sensitivity and it reduces blood sugar levels by enabling more glucose to be stored in your muscles.
Obesity- Strength and resistance training boosts your metabolism, aiding in more efficient food/energy usage. Our body stores excess food in either our fat cells, muscles, or our liver. Excess energy storage in our fat cells is what causes obesity. If our body can begin to resource that energy through our muscles, we can begin to manage our weight better.
Hypertension- Strength and resistance training increases blood flow and causes weight reductions which both help lower blood pressure. The body’s blood pressure response to strength and resistance training has acute effects and chronic effects.
In addition to these conditions, strength and resistance training also has positive effects on high cholesterol, cardiovascular diseases, stroke prevention, boosts mood, enhances mental health, and improves brain health.
For more information on these effects, chat with us at www.healmississippi.com. We would love to navigate your health journey and be your healthy life tour guides.
Now you know, strength and resistance training will “not” make you bulky but is essential to a balanced workout routine.