October 1, 2021 | by Jeremy Meyer | Personal Training, Strength Training For All Ages, Strength Training For Beginners, Strength Training For Women,
How Does Strength Training Work?
How Does Strength Training Work to Help Chronic Pain and Injuries
For over 20 years, the evidence has been mounting that strength training has a wide range of benefits. No matter how young or old, fit or otherwise if you complete a good quality strength training program under the guidance of a qualified personal trainer, you’ll reap the benefits.
How does strength training work, and how does it help to prevent and cure chronic pain and injuries? Strength training leads to an increase in strength, power, muscle mass, an improvement in body composition and improved metabolism. Let’s dive in to find out how does strength training works to improve your health.
#1 Reduced Risk of Musculoskeletal Injuries
For many people, the most significant benefit of strength training is a reduced risk of musculoskeletal injuries. You may have a pre-existing injury that can flare up, or you’re getting on in years when injuries are more likely to occur. Strength training works to build muscle that protects bones and tendons from injury.
#2 Reduced Chronic Pain
Overuse injuries are common, from an occupation, poor training technique or leisure activity that requires one part of the body being overworked. Regular strength training works to improve or eliminate chronic pain caused by overuse injuries.
#3 Increased Bone Density
Bone is living tissue, and when strength training is performed with enough intensity and frequency, it will increase bone density. Strength training or low speed, low impact resistance training offers the most osteogenic response (increased bone density and strength) compared to other forms of training such as running, jumping or cardiovascular exercise.
#4 Increased Size & Strength of Connective Tissue
Tendons and ligaments make up the connective tissue in our body. The primary fibre of connective tissue is collagen. Studies have shown that absolute collagen content increases with resistance training when performed at the right intensity and adequate load.
There is a direct relationship between muscle size and the strength and thickness of connective tissues. So, the larger the muscle, the greater the thickness of tendons and ligaments. More muscular connective tissue and muscle mass will significantly reduce your chance of incurring an injury.
The only way to induce muscle hypertrophy (increased muscle size) is by performing resistance training to muscular failure using adequate load. Using ‘light’ weights won’t help you increase muscle size, greater connective tissue strength, and bone mass.
#5 Functional Ability
Resistance strength training works to help maintain or improve functional ability. Many of the movements that we take for granted when we are young become harder to perform as we age. Daily activities such as getting up from a chair, walking up a set of stairs or carrying suitcases can become difficult. This is due to sarcopenia, muscle loss related to the normal process of aging. As a result, people become less active, which accelerates the aging process.
How Does Strength Training Work to improve your Functional Ability? At Raw, we take each new client through our functional movement screen before training with us. This helps up determine which basic movement we need to focus on and improve.
Strength training to improve basic human movements such as the squat, single-leg squat, hip hinge, overhead press, and horizontal row.
Our goal is for a client of any age or training experience to have the ability to perform all these basic human movements pain-free and with a full range of motion. We also want to make sure that our client can perform those movements without fatiguing too early with a breakdown in technique which increases the chance of an injury.
#6 Improved Core Muscle Strength
Following a well-designed strength training program will improve core musculature strength and endurance. The major core muscles include the anterior and posterior core muscles. These muscles are responsible for keeping the spine stable while performing daily activities or playing sports.
Keeping these core muscles strong and engaged will drastically reduce the chance of incurring a back injury. Regular strength training works as a cure for chronic back pain. Improved core muscular endurance makes the muscles in the lower back more resistant to fatigue.
#7 Increased Metabolism
Muscle cells require more energy than fat cells, so the more muscle you have, the faster your metabolism is.How Does Strength Training Work to change your metabolism? By increasing your body muscle mass, which in turn boosts your resting metabolism. A more efficient metabolism means you burn more calories even when you aren’t exercising.
How Does Strength Training Work at RAW?
The number one priority when starting a strength training program is to stay injury-free. The average gym goer often uses too much weight with poor training technique with can lead to an injury. Or they don’t use enough resistance, which leads to little or no gain. Both will stop progress.
At Raw Personal Training, we take each new client through our Initial Assessment. The results of the assessment help us design an individualized strength training program for the client that will allow them to gain the maximum return on investment for their time and money.
So now you know How Does Strength Training Works, why notcome in for a free consultation to find out how strength training can work for you and we can help you achieve your goals.