Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Hello. Hello. What are the benefits of strength training? More specifically, are there any cardio benefits of strength training? So when we talk about protecting our heart health, the first thing people say is to run, to swim, to cycle.
Speaker 1:And strength training builds muscle and protects bones. That's kind of the thing. You do this for this, this for that. And for decades, this is what we've been told or what we've known. Right?
Speaker 1:But now we know it's not true. Because decades of research now tells us that strength training also protects heart health, almost as effectively as so called cardio. So this isn't really surprising to me, but it might be surprising to a lot of you listening. You say, well, how can lifting weights doesn't make me sweat that much. Lifting weights doesn't give me the endorphin rush from running.
Speaker 1:It's just not the same. It's definitely not the same, but, you know, you can't really argue with science now. And it's even on the American Heart Association message. It's on their latest scientific statement. So it's kind of gonna go mainstream now, I think, where that's kind of where people get their information from Heart Association.
Speaker 1:Right? What does this mean for us is the question. What does it mean for you and me? What does it mean for us and and our general approach to living healthier and happier lives? Does it now mean we gotta think of more workouts?
Speaker 1:Does it mean this and that? Well, not really. It just means now that, like, you don't need to think of either or. You can just do what you enjoy. There's there's unique benefits strength training that you don't get from cardio, but the same can't be said for the other way around anymore.
Speaker 1:So maybe the the best thing to do is maybe start with at home strength workouts. And if you do want to do cardio because you really enjoy, you can do it, but that takes a longer time. It might be something that you it's more daunting maybe to go for a run, to go for a swim, to go for a cycle. Do know what mean? It might be something like, I don't really wanna do that.
Speaker 1:Strength training at home though, you know, anywhere that anything you can stay. It's easy. It's affordable. It's cheap. Can do it anytime.
Speaker 1:Right? So anyway, in this American Heart Association kind of booklet or document they share around. It looks at 96 studies and concluded that strength training can improve all of the following things. Blood pressure, diabetes risk, triglycerides and cholesterol, mood, body composition, blood sugar control, inflammation, sleep, blood vessel health, quality of life, cardiorespiratory fitness. He says, according to the statement, these benefits are easier to attain than many think.
Speaker 1:This is the best part. I mean, this this should make you celebrate with joy. People only need twice weekly sessions involving one to two sets of eight to 10 exercises. Most clients can do this within ten to fifteen minutes per session. Right?
Speaker 1:Think about that. That's nothing. Two and I've I've been saying this for a while. I've read other data that says about this two workouts a week, strength training. You know?
Speaker 1:You can do maybe two full body workouts. You can do an upper body workout or a lower body workout. You do five exercises of each workout, and you do one or two sets. Maybe one maybe do a warm up set, and then maybe you do two sets. And that's it.
Speaker 1:It's easy. You think, what's the point? This is the point. All of what I just said above, that list of things I just said, blood pressure, diabetes, all of that can be achieved from that. If you wanted to go beyond it, that's up to you.
Speaker 1:But like I said yesterday in a podcast, where's our base? Where's our core that we can work from this is always achievable? All of us here have got the capability of doing twenty minute workouts twice a week, strength workouts. If it involves some dumbbells or body weight workout or resistance bands and you do it from home, you spend more time on your phone per day than you do that you could like you spend more time on your phone in half a day probably than those two things you need to do. Right?
Speaker 1:So it's important that we think we think about this. We think about, yes, calories, yes, protein, yes, steps. Brilliant. Can I incorporate two strength workouts per week? Simple ones.
Speaker 1:Maybe. Don't stress yourself out if you can't right now, but just know in the back of your mind, that's all it takes, two a week. Let's go. If you need help with it, let me know. Anyway, next.
Speaker 1:So how does strength training actually improve heart health? Right? How does it do it? So like cardio, strength training does increase your heart and breathing rate as your muscles gobble the oxygen needed to power through each lift. Right?
Speaker 1:So through your heart rate, though your heart rate may not match what happens when you're sprinting or jumping or running, it likely gets pretty close to and possibly surpasses your heart rate during brisk walking when you're doing weights. Okay? Second of all, muscle tissue is metabolically active. Not only does it burn calories, it also helps to regulate blood sugar, improve insulin sensitivity, and keep blood cholesterol in check. Muscle tissue also secretes helpful substances that regulate the inflammation that can damage tissues throughout the body, including blood vessels.
Speaker 1:Again, I was saying this for a while now, the reason you got a higher folding diet is because you wanna protect your muscle mass. Because I said, metabolically active. It's very important for your metabolic health. You don't wanna be losing muscle mass, so you don't wanna go on crash diets of just card cardio and low calories. Like, think of MyFitnessPal.
Speaker 1:They give you 1,200 calories a day, 1,001. They tell you to do cardio because you can eat back the calories. What does that reinforce? A culture of high cardio, low calories, protein, who cares? No strength training.
Speaker 1:Muscle mass is going. Body fat is going down. But then when they stop doing it, the body fat piles back on, but the muscle mass doesn't. Rinse, repeat. Your body fat percentage is gonna fly through the roof, your muscle mass is gonna waste away, and it's hard to get muscle mass back as you age.
Speaker 1:Okay? That's the warning I wanna give out. So you wanna maintain muscle mass at all costs. You don't wanna think about it this way as well. You don't wanna go strength or cardio really.
Speaker 1:Okay? You should do both or you should do whatever you prefer. But resistance training, again, it isn't unique in that sense. It actually reduces all cause mortality the same as cardio. Right?
Speaker 1:And that if you think of it that way, you say, I'm fine with that. That's brilliant. Brilliant. Like, okay. So I can reduce my all cause mortality.
Speaker 1:My risk of dying, I can reduce it by training twice a week, some weights. And if you train twice a week with weights, little bands of body weight, right, and you do some cardio as well, it doubles the effects against all cause mortality. Right? So there's an eighteen percent reduction and twenty nine percent reduction for each of them individually, put together is forty to forty six percent reductions. Huge.
Speaker 1:Huge. Again, these numbers, you wanna be, like, thinking number numbers is first of all, it's always to think what is suitable for me? What can I where can I start? Where can I start small? Can I do one work of the week?
Speaker 1:Can I do two? Can I do brisk brisk walking? Can I do brisk walks twice a week? Let me start somewhere, guys. I'm not saying you gotta throw everything out there.
Speaker 1:Start somewhere. Don't overcomplicate it. Don't make it difficult. Do it for the benefits of loving to do it. Get your friend involved, maybe.
Speaker 1:Go to two classes a week. Just something something twice a week. Some classes are brilliant. They're a mix of cardio and strength. Maybe you've got an orange theory near you.
Speaker 1:In hard mind, I I well, I did an orange theory session once and I nearly passed out. It was tough times those days. And, yeah, so I was just reading my notes in the study in case I missed something. And, yeah, they just talk about, like, making accessible and realizing why do people not lift weights? So why do they not do body weight workouts?
Speaker 1:Like, do know I mean? Why are people not doing it? Is a is a question being asked. First of all, it's confidence with exercises. Sometimes you can watch a YouTube video.
Speaker 1:You still don't know if it's right or wrong. Sometimes you think it takes too much time. Sometimes it can be brought in. You know? Don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1:Gym has been a part of my life since I was able to go up. Very athletic background, but rugby into the gym. And then in the gym into just the gym, into the gym. And there's been days, weeks, years of time when I've thought, oh my god, I don't really like this workout. I can't be bothered to do it.
Speaker 1:But it's part of who I am now, you know? I I I'm doing it for the benefits of it. But as we sometimes, I love the workout. I've absolutely loved it. I'm gonna keep going.
Speaker 1:So I can see how weights can get boring because you're not you're pushing yourself for the set and then you gotta wait. You're pushing yourself for the set and you gotta wait. You know. When you're doing running or something like that, you're you're something you can't think about stuff. And that's maybe the problem with weight sometimes.
Speaker 1:You can think too much between sets and you can think about work, you can think about going on your phone, you can think about your life problems. And I've walked out the gym early loads of times because I've gone to the gym, I've warmed up, and I've, like, started doing a set, and I take a break. And then I would I'll go on my phone to change music. And then I go on my emails, and I'll see something that really just stresses stresses me out in a sense like, I'm like, god. It's gotta be dealt with.
Speaker 1:And then I try to do a female sets and I keep thinking about it. I'm like, oh, I gotta handle it now. I'm like, oh, I'm going. I'm gonna handle this now. And I've left the gym.
Speaker 1:I think I've done that. So I get it. I get why it it can be in our our in our way. But, again, my mindset has changed in those days. This is like early days when I started my business, when I started my rugby clothing brand in 2015, you know, like, in in those days having like a manufacturer problem or whatever, I was straight on, straight out, straight on the phone, couldn't think about working out, didn't become a priority to me that the other thing did.
Speaker 1:But today, I really do protect my my training time. You know, if I go jujitsu, for example, I don't see my phone for like two hours. Don't touch it. Don't go and see it. Don't care about it.
Speaker 1:You know, when I'm training now, I try and stay away from it. Just music only. Very different now. Like, this is my time, and then I will go and deal with the life problems and other things outside of it. Nothing's gonna fall apart.
Speaker 1:I'm not the president of The United States Of America under attack. You know what mean? I'm just living my life. So same for you guys. You wanna protect your time.
Speaker 1:And when you do do weights, you will come across times you think is a bit boring and slow. But just remember, the more rest you can take between sets, the harder you can do the sets and the better the results you're gonna get. And you wanna start thinking how am I gonna charm myself, big yourself up between sets, put your best music on, then that time flies by. But other than that, if you're thinking about your problem, it's gonna go really slow. Anyway, I wanted to cover that.
Speaker 1:I hope it's useful. If any of you want help in regards to what you should do for strength training, let me know. Right? Let me know, and I'll help you. It's sometimes confusing where to start because you Google this and you come up with thousand programs, you don't know where to start, conflicting advice, la la la la la.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, if you do wanna get started and you you got the confidence, okay, I'm gonna start once a week, let me know. Put the day in the diary. Put the workout there. Hit it. How did it go?
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Okay. No. Start it. And you've started on the journey of improving all your health as well as doing cardio or brisk walking.
Speaker 1:You're also gonna be doing some strength workouts, is amazing. And then you've kind of completed the trio then or the the quadruplet. Cali's protein, steps, strength. Steps, brisk walking, strength. Have a think.
Speaker 1:Let me know. Enjoy your day. Speak to you soon.