Strength Training is the new Fountain of Youth!

Healthy habit is the means to age gracefully. It is impossible to talk about healthy lifestyle without whining about the importance of a total conditioning exercise program. Such a program includes cardio, strength, balance, and flexibility (stretching). Some people, especially women, only focus on cardio. Cardio (walking, jogging, running, swimming, biking, raking leaves, and other activities that get your heart pumping) is great, but it is never a complete workout. It is not enough to you to sustain your health for a lifetime. Your workout should not only include cardio, but also strength training, flexibility, and balance for you to age gracefully and stay active as you enter your 50s and beyond.

For most women, cardio, balance and flexibility seem to be enough to have a fit body. They didn’t like to do strength training since they dot like to have bulky muscles. However, that is where they are wrong since they don’t have the hormone to develop muscles. Even if, they lift heavy weight, their body will stay the same unless they take some supplement to increase their muscles.

If you have been reading a lot of articles about exercise, then you already knew that most experts believe that strength training is the fountain of youth. Why? Here, are 5 reasons why.

• Improved mental and physical stamina. Strength training allows you to have stronger, leaner, and healthier muscle. You’ll also have increased mental and physical stamina to handle stress easily in the daily living.

• Toughen your bones. Strength training strengthens your bones, which reduces your risk to develop osteoporosis. Stronger bones let you enjoy daily activities with more confidence and ease.

• Prevents an injury from occurring. Strength training fortifies muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones. And, the stronger we get, the lower our chance of getting injured. This is crucial as we grew older.

• Delays the aging process. Strength training helps people to put a brake on the aging process. Prevents muscle loss that normally accompanies aging.

• Enhances physical appearance. Strength training improves the overall appearance and body composition. Take, for example, a 150 pound man with 50% body fat. By engaging in an effective strength training program, he cuts down his body fat to 20%. Though, his body weight, remain the same, his strength, muscle tone, and metabolism improves, which gives him a fit appearance.

Strength training should be part of any fitness program. Not including it on your fitness regiment means not to keep your fit appearance longer.