1.) Boosts Metabolism: Regularly lifting weights promotes the growth of lean muscle. The more muscle your body has, the more fat and calories you will burn at rest.
2.) Hitting New Personal Records Keeps You Motivated: Setting and breaking personal records is extremely rewarding. This could be anything from the number of reps you can do to an increase in the amount of weight you are lifting, or just the ease of which you are able to complete a set that you struggled with the week prior. Any sign of improvement will elicit a feeling of pride and keep you coming back for more.
3.) Daily Activities are Easier: Everything is easier when you are stronger and faster. Carrying laundry up and down the stairs, moving furniture, carrying multiple bags of groceries, pulling down a heavy appliance off the top shelf or picking your toddler up to buckle him into the car seat. You name it. If you have more strength, tackling those daily tasks are no problem.
4.) Reduce Health Risks: Weight lifting can reduce the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. It can also help lower blood pressure, LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, stress and anxiety while helping to boost the immune system and raise HDL (“good”) cholesterol.
5.) Weight Lifting is Time Efficient: It’s no secret we all lead busy lives and sometimes scheduling exercise gets put on the back burner. But you don’t always have to do an hour of cardio to get a good workout in. You can have a great strength training session in as little as 15-20 minutes. And with any exercise, you should get it in when you can. Even if you only have 20 minutes for cardio in the morning, just do it. The only bad workout is the one that didn’t happen. Those 15-20 minute exercise sessions will add up by the end of the week.
