Weight training is often associated with men who have huge muscles, huffing, puffing and throwing weights around then posing in the mirror…But there are other reasons to lift weights in the gym which everyone would benefit from. Here are 5 to get you motivated:
1. Improved Fat Loss
You use energy when you are working out so you will be burning calories that you would not have been had you just stayed at home and sat on the sofa watching TV.
Not only does the actual workout use energy but your body’s energy usage remains high for days afterwards because it has to repair the damaged muscle tissue as a result of your weight lifting. 
The damage is not a bad damage. What happens when you exercise is that tiny tears occur in the muscle fibers, that’s why your muscles can be sore after a heavy workout for up to 4-5 days. The body works to repair those muscle fibers and it makes them bigger, all the while using energy to make it happen.
An additional benefit of more muscle mass is that for every 1 lb of muscle you add your body uses around 50-60 calories a day just to maintain it. Imagine if you added 6lb (2.72kg) of muscle. That would mean you effectively have an additional 300-360 calories used every day. It’s like going on a diet without changing what you eat. 
2. Bone Density
Believe it or not, lifting weights actually helps to improve bone density. This is a great thing to get in to when you are younger because it will help you later in life because as you age your bones begin to weaken. By continuing to weight train when you are older it means the rate at which your bones weaken will be much slower than if you did not weight train at all.
Don’t worry if you are already older and reading this. A study by Ontario’s McMaster University found that postmenopausal women who participated in a yearlong weight training program improved their spinal bone density by 9%! That’s an amazing result and brings me nicely onto my next point…
Women who weight train get all of these benefits just like men do. And for those women who are worried about getting big or bulky when you weight train, don’t be. You are not going to get really muscular without a huge amount of effort, a bit of luck in in the gene pool and it won’t happen overnight. I guarantee you.
3. Increased strength
Personally, I find that I get a great sense of satisfaction after having done a weights session. Some kind of primitive desire to be strong; that feeling of knowing you are improving your physical abilities. It’s something very primal. To know that should I need to do anything physical I am definitely able to do so, like run away from a saber-toothed tiger by climbing walls and sprinting through forests…A bit far-fetched I know but that’s the feeling I get. It’s great to feel like you have that kind of control over your own body and be confident in your own abilities should the need arise to use them.
An increase in strength also ensures that you are able to use and control your body effectively. For example, there are many elderly people who fall over and break bones. Their bones weaken and their ability to remain balanced degrades as they age. By training, both of these issues would be far less of a problem. We have already discussed the benefits of weight training on bone density and by training in the gym with resistance and movement you are going to be in far better control of your muscles and therefore how you move and remain balanced.
It’s not only the muscles which become stronger when you weight training, the ligaments and tendons do too. Ligaments attach bone to bone and tendons attach muscle to bone. In order for your ligaments and tendons to grow stronger they need to be progressively overloaded without being stressed too much. In essence, this just means don’t go too heavy too soon.
Take your time. If you tear a ligament it’s going to take a long time to repair and it may never be as strong again so it’s something to really be avoided if possible.
4. Release of Endorphins & Serotonin
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence says that exercise increases brain serotonin in humans. Serotonin is a chemical found in the gut and in the brain. It’s in the brain that it is responsible for feelings of well-being, or a lack of it being related to depression. Scientists aren’t exactly sure of the reasons for it, but exercising is found to increase both the release and synthesis of the chemical serotonin.
Endorphins act on your brain chemicals and it is these chemicals which help to regulate mood. This is where the term “runners high” comes from. In addition to regulating mood, the release of endorphins helps to relieve stress and increases insulin sensitivity.  Having a better insulin sensitivity means that your cells respond to insulin and that helps you use the sugars in the blood. Modern day diets contain a lot of sugar so some people build up a resistance to insulin, which is whey exercise can help greatly.
5. Develop cardiovascular fitness
Hitting the weights room doesn’t always mean that you are going to be lifting heavy weights very slowly and sitting around a lot of the time. A great way to get a cardio workout like treadmill workout, jumping rope, elliptical workout along with a resistance workout is to make a circuit, make it fast and fun.
For example, you could put together a list of 8 exercises that you are going to do without a rest. Each exercise may be done for a specific length of time or for a number of repetitions and then you move onto the next one. Maybe you could do 20 bench presses, followed by 50 kettle bell swings, then 30 sit-ups, 10 squats 10 min elliptical and 50 punches on the bag. The list of different exercises is endless.
This allows you to lower the weights slightly so that you are doing the workout at a higher intensity and getting your heart rate up. It’s good to mix up doing heavy weight training and faster, higher intensity weight training throughout your week as this will give you good, all round fitness and prevent boredom setting in.

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