3 Hidden benefits of strength training

I don't know if you've heard, but strength training is important.

Aside from helping you craft a ‘toned, slender’ physique, it improves confidence, reduces the risk of injury and assists in the improvement of your metabolic rate.

There’s an underrated aspect of strength training that often goes unnoticed, however:

The lessons it teaches you in other parts of your life.

Here are three:

1. Hitting failure teaches you to always push yourself

That sensation when rep seven hits, you feel like your arms are going to collapse underneath you, you’re convinced your muscles may tear into a thousand pieces under the pressure, and you may well just wet yourself, isn’t the nicest of feelings.

And yet, you always manage to push out an extra rep or two.

You can always manage more than you think.

So, if you’re struggling to prep meals, track your food, adhere to the healthy snacks you’ve planned, or stop at 80% fullness, just know that you’ve always got that extra push inside you.

Like grinding out another rep or two, you need to find that inner strength to get as close to failure with the behaviours and habits required for change.

2. Hitting failure teaches you that nothing will go wrong

What happens if you fail to hit a required rep range in one session?

Nothing.

You haven’t lost strength or muscle, ruined the previous weeks’ hard work, or suddenly become a resounding failure.

So, if you suddenly fail to adhere to meals you’ve planned or overeat unexpectedly, nothing will happen.

Much like attempting the following training session again, you get the opportunity to try again at the next meal.

Nothing will go wrong if you encounter a slight mishap.

3. Building on a foundation leads to strength and results

The underpinning principle of resistance based training is progressive overload: the concept of doing more over time.

This encourages strength and improvement, rather than standing still and hoping your body will change by repeating the same things over and over again (yes I’m talking to the fitness class regulars and the people who follow the same routine every week doing their 3 sets of 10).

You must adopt this premise elsewhere: always strive to do more than you previously did.

If you managed to prep three meals for the week, aim for four the next.

If you managed to average 8,000 steps for the week, aim for 8,500 the next.

If you managed to hit an average of 100 grams of protein for the week, aim for 110 the next.

As long as you’re making 1% improvements each week – as you are hopefully doing with your workouts – you’ll build an inner strength and can’t help but not fail.

Ways I can help you...

The next FREE Ignite Online Program is coming up, we’ll be covering all of this and more.  You can join now

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