Training That Is Worth Its Weight
Newcastle Herald
Tuesday April 6, 2004
TRY to include both a weight-bearing activity and an aerobic activity in your weekly schedule.
Cross training offers advantages to those of you who want to just keep in shape and manage your weight and the elite athlete.
Try adding a variety of different exercises to keep you motivated and interested.
However, you don't have to go to the gym and run aimlessly for hours on a treadmill or sit on a stationary bike.
Hop on a bike and discover the wonderful environment you live in, catch up with friends and play a game of tennis, join a rockclimbing club and discover the exhilarating thrill of abseiling down a rock face. Whatever your passion, get out there and huff and puff your way around your city.
Use the gym to work those muscles your aerobic activity may not. Remember, increasing your muscle mass helps keep the fat away. If you find lifting weights boring, join up with a friend, it will be much more fun and you can help each other to get motivated.
Benefits
The benefits of weight training for people of all ages, whether they are beginners or not, are enormous.
Weight training has been proven to help you control body fat and enjoy a healthier and fitter life.
The average person over the age of 35 loses around 250 grams of muscle tissue and gains around half a kilogram of fat a year, due to a lack of weight-bearing exercise.
Weight training increases your strength, muscular endurance and muscle mass. Women, because of their hormonal structure, generally do not bulk up like men sometimes do.
Any muscle mass increase is beneficial to losing excess body fat as it raises your metabolism.
Weight-bearing exercises such as weight training, walking, running and the like help to make stronger bones, lowering your risk of osteoporosis and leaving you less vulnerable to fractures in the future.
Key researchers have provided a wealth of data on the positive physiological responses of weight training and these are:Promotes muscle growth; Increases basal metabolic rate; Reduces body fat; Increases bone density; Improves glucose metabolism; Reduces lower back pain; Reduces resting blood pressure.
This article supplied by The Forum Sports and Aquatic Centre at The University of Newcastle. Website: www.newcastle.edu.au/sport. Phone 49217001.
© 2004 Newcastle Herald