8 Top Reasons Why You Should be Lifting Heavy

Lifting heavy objects at the gym requires precision movement and concentration. Many people have injured themselves at the gym or at work due to the lack of these two factors. However, this does not excuse you for asking proper guidance on how to improve yourself and start hitting the heavy stuff at the gym. Below are the top 8 reason why you should give it a shot:

Good for your memory

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Remember the dumb jock stereotype? Well, according to the study funded by the National Science Council in Taiwan, regular strength training with resistance level 75% – 80% of max helps protect the elderly from cognitive decline. Yes, weight training helps make sure grandpa won’t forget to put his pants on when he leaves the house. Recent studies done at the Georgia Institute of Technology on graduate students also showed that resistance training helps improve short term memory function up to 48 hours after exercise. Note that these benefits are strictly from resistance training, not endurance training.

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As I mentioned as part of the benefits of doing at least part of the powerlifting program, doing squats and deadlifts has been proven to increase your testosterone, growth hormone and insulin-like growth factors, all important hormones that will help you develop lean muscle mass. And no, its never too late. The granny in the picture only started doing weight training at the age of 61 and she is already deadlifting 100 kg.

Balance your muscle proportion

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As per Dr’ McGill’s research showed in his book Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance, certain types of exercises tend to perpetuate certain types of muscle imbalance. Cycling only uses your quads, hence tend to perpetuate gluteal amnesia syndrome for some people, not good for your back. Runners that never train their core also risk of spine instability and hence low back pain after long distance running. Golfers are also at risk of upper body left and right side imbalance. All of these can be addressed with properly programmed weight lifting session.

Increase your metabolism

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Repeated research done at the University of Maryland in 1994 and 2001 that regardless of your gender and age, strength training will increase your resting metabolic news. This is great news for us that enjoys our eating our food because this means we get to eat more without gaining weight!

Reverse Osteoporosis

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Weight bearing exercise has simply been proven to reverse osteoporosis, both among osteoporotic old women and middle aged men that has low mineral bone density. Of course the key is slow adaptation, where the bone mass density only increases by approximately 1% over the year. But these are the two populations that were loosing bone density even with mineral supplements prior to the exercise treatment, so even minor improvement is definitely better.

Improve your work capacity

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I haven’t done any exercise that can be considered as “serious cardio” for several months. I simply lift my weights and do my conditioning. And then I did some hike at Wilson trail in Hong Kong. Guess what? I didn’t have any stamina problem at all during the hike. The thing is, if you do proper strength training, you will also develop your strength skills, the capability of using your body linkage as efficient as possible, effectively reducing joint loading during activities, not to mention increasing your muscular strength capacity. Hence the comparison is like a 1 liter engine versus 2.5 liter engine going up hill at the speed of 80 kmh, the one with the bigger engine never really need to use its capacity and would not overheat.

Effective mood regulator

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The American Psychological Association has publicly endorsed exercise as an effective way to build the body’ stress buffers, allowing you to withstand more pressure without cracking up. As your body is connected to your brain (and powerlifters and weightlifters even specifically train the neural drive), exercise will put stress on your body and mind in a controlled manner, allowing it to build up tolerance and hence improves your capability to deal with the unexpected stress that would arise in your daily life.

Bragging Rights!

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Last but not least. Come on, to the men and independent women out there, what more bragging rights can you get from saying that you can squat double your own body weight?

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