Weight training has many benefits, such as weight loss and health maintenance. And you can grow your muscles by training regardless of your age . However, if you are new to muscle training, you may not know how to work on it.
In addition, there are cases where muscle training is performed blindly without sufficient knowledge, and injuries and pain occur. Here, we’ve put together a list of things you should know in advance for those new to muscle training. Let’s check the benefits of muscle training and the points to work on.
Mechanism of Muscle Growth
Muscles can grow by combining the three elements of “exercise (training)”, “nutrition” and “rest” . Training puts stress on the body due to damage and fatigue of muscle fibers, and temporarily reduces muscle strength and physical strength. However, proper nutrition and rest will help your muscles recover.
However, muscle recovery takes time. The specific time will vary depending on the extent and location of the muscle fiber damage, but generally it is good to expect about 2-3 days. Sleep time and nutrition intake are also involved in muscle recovery, so please try to ensure enough.
This recovery allows muscles to grow stronger, leading to outcomes such as strength gains and muscle hypertrophy . This is called “super recovery”. Combining training with proper nutrition and rest will help your muscles grow more efficiently. This mechanism occurs regardless of age, so anyone can grow muscles.
Benefits of Building Muscle
Increased basal metabolic rate makes it easier to burn fat, and has a diet effect
The basal metabolic rate is the amount of energy required (consumed) for a person to live without exercising. And this basal metabolic rate increases as muscle mass increases.
In other words , if you build muscle, the amount of energy consumed in your daily life will naturally increase, making it difficult for your body to gain weight. Strengthening is recommended especially for those who want to avoid rebounding on a diet.
Leads to improvement of physical disorders (stiffness, swelling, coldness, etc.)
Poor blood circulation is said to be one of the causes of physical ailments such as coldness, stiffness, and swelling. When you move your muscles through training, the muscle contraction acts as a pump, making it easier for blood to flow to the extremities of your body and promoting blood circulation . As a result, you can expect to eliminate coldness and stiffness.
In addition, there are many cases where the correct posture cannot be maintained, causing back pain and stiff shoulders. In this case as well, you will be able to improve and maintain your posture by training the muscles that support and maintain correct posture.
An opportunity to release stress
It is said that “serotonin” secreted by doing muscle training has a refreshing effect. In other words, muscle training will be an opportunity to release stress. Strength training not only benefits you physically, but mentally as well .
Improve quality of life (QOL) regardless of age
In order to improve the quality of life (QOL), it is essential to be able to perform basic daily activities without any inconvenience. Daily activities, including standing, sitting, walking, and holding, require adequate muscle strength to accomplish this. Building strength helps maintain and improve quality of life.
Mistakes Beginners Make
Overtraining
Consistent training is essential for muscle growth. However, if you train excessively without resting in a state of pain and fatigue, not only will the effectiveness of your training decrease, but it can also cause injuries. Get plenty of rest so you can continue training.
Focusing only on load (=tightness)
When doing muscle training, there are not many people who place importance on applying a high load anyway. However, muscle training has an appropriate load according to each person’s strength and purpose. If you apply an excessive load to the extent that your form collapses, it may lead to unexpected injury .
If you’re not sure what training intensity is right for you, ask your fitness club instructor. Unless you want to strengthen a specific body part, it is not recommended to train the same body part too often. If you want to build a healthy body or diet, try to train your whole body in a well-balanced manner .
As mentioned earlier, after training you need to rest for recovery. If you change the part to be trained depending on the day, you can train efficiently in order while recovering your muscles.
No change in diet
When you train, you use more energy than you normally would. Also, the amount of nutrients you need for recovery will change. In order to maximize the training effect, it is important to pay attention to nutrition intake.
How to Work on Muscle Training
Stretch before your workout. Warming up the muscles little by little and increasing their flexibility also helps prevent injuries. In addition, you can expect performance improvement by expanding the range of motion of the body.
In addition, stretching after muscle training can loosen muscle tension and promote fatigue recovery. After training, there are many fatigue substances. When blood circulation is poor, fatigue substances tend to stay in the body, slowing recovery from fatigue.
As a result, muscle soreness is difficult to heal. In other words, it is recommended to follow the order of “(dynamic) stretching → muscle training → stretching” as the basic order because the muscles are contracted and difficult to stretch.
Conclusion:
Muscle strength peaks in the twenties and declines with age if nothing is done. Even in everyday life, there may be times when you suddenly feel a decline. Many people may give up because they are old, but muscles can be trained and grown regardless of age. To keep your body healthy, try strength training.
