In terms of definition, lifting heavy weights is – “The lifting of heavyweights in a prescribed manner as an exercise or in athletic competition. However, it is much more than just an athletic activity.”
Heavy weight lifting is seen as an activity that mostly helps people looking for gaining muscles or building muscle power but it isn’t used just for gaining muscles. Lifting heavy weights can be a very beneficial activity to improve body strength, not just muscle wise, but over-all strength that includes your core, mental strength, muscles of course and tissues too.
It helps in:
- Beneficial for women along with men, as it increases the power and strength of your muscles without significantly adding bulk or size (especially in women).
- It cuts fat and helps you lose weight as it uses a lot of your fats as energy and hence the body fat content reduces.
- It helps in improving your brain functioning. Lifting heavy increases the production of many hormones, which enhance cognitive function.
- Heavy lifting can improve endurance speed, and running economy (the amount of energy and effort it takes to do something like run a five-minute mile).
- It can also strengthen bones and help prevent osteoporosis, especially in postmenopausal women.
- Lifting heavy improves intramuscular coordination. Intermuscular coordination is the ability of several different sections of muscle to work together that makes a movement. Intramuscular coordination is the ability of the fibres that comprise a particular muscle to work together to generate a force. Because it requires more force to contract a muscle, using heavy resistance can improve the intramuscular coordination in a specific section of muscle, which will also help you become more efficient at generating strength.
- Lifting heavy can help increase your resting metabolism. One pound of skeletal muscle expands approximately 5 to 7 calories a day at rest. Adding 5 to 7 pounds of muscle can increase your resting metabolism (how efficiently your body produces and uses energy) up to 50 calories a day. This might not sound like a lot but over a year that is a difference of approximately two-thirds of a pound of fat that you can burn while doing absolutely nothing.
- Resistance training using bodyweight and with free weights, strengthens more than just your muscles. It also strengthens your bones and connective tissues. This added strength and stability will help you ward off injuries and keep a strong body. It can also help reduce symptoms of many conditions like back pain, arthritis, fibromyalgia, and chronic pain.
- Heavy lifting helps in fighting to age. Inactive adults can lose 3 to 8 percent of muscle mass per decade. You might lament the loss of your rock-hard arms or killer abs, but even worse, muscle weakness is linked with an increased likelihood of death in men. Heavy resistance training can help fight, and reverse, the loss of muscle mass. It can also strengthen bones and help prevent osteoporosis, especially in postmenopausal women.
Hence we see that heavy lifting is not a gender-specific activity, it is very useful for both men and women. It is an activity that brings together all the elements of our lives, our bodies, our muscles, our mind, our body organs, and even our mind. It helps in the overall development and improvement of your body and mind. Hence there is much more than just what we see at face value as far as Heavy lifting is concerned.