Strength Training Is As Good For Our Minds and Soul As It Is For Our Muscles.
"That was awesome, Paul! Deadlifts make me feel so powerful! I didn’t wanna come this morning. It's crazy busy this weekend, and I woke up feeling pretty drained. But I'm so glad I did. I feel really good about myself!"
Like most of our newer MidStrongers, Melanie had never done much strength training and had never trained with barbells. It was just a few weeks until she built a solid foundation of sufficient core strength and proper mechanics to deadlift safely. Now there’s no stopping her!
Lifting heavy sh*t is exhilarating and empowering. It makes us feel good.
It's as good for our minds and soul as it is for our muscles.
I posted about some of the amazing physical dividends that lifting weights can deliver. The cognitive, mental, and emotional dividends of exercise, and more specifically, strength training, are also very well documented in credible scientific literature. A quick search turns up a mountain of clinical studies, meta-analyses, articles, and research reviews.
With all that scientific evidence, it's safe to assert that strength training can help:
Reduce the symptoms of anxiety-related disorders by boosting the secretion of the neurochemical serotonin.
Improve our mood and relieve depression by dumping dopamine and endorphins into our bloodstream.
Boost our body image and self-confidence. Nobody ever complains about feeling stronger and looking leaner. And the pronounced sense of accomplishment is amazing.
Sharpen our cognitive acuity and memory. The same neurochemicals that make us feel good also sharpen our cognition and memory.
Ameliorate acute stress and mitigate chronic stress. There may be no more effective stress relief than that from a session of strength training. It is most certainly better than the usual outlets - alcohol, comfort food, scrolling, and binge-watching.
Simply put, picking things up and putting them down is invigorating, empowering, and... healing.
So much so that it almost seems magical. We're not saying that strength training is a cure-all for any of these serious conditions. But the fact that it can help, in both the short and long term, is indisputable.
We plan to explore this topic in much more detail in our Healthspan Secrets Webinar this Thursday, April 13th at 5:45 pm. Here’s where you can register.
Our purpose at MidStrong is to help us preserve our ability to do the things we love, with the ones we love, for as long as we live. This involves a holistic approach that includes mind, body, and spirit.
We know that the same effort that allowed Melanie to lift a heavy barbell off the floor, also provided clarity of thought and purpose and helped her feel better about herself and her life in every way.
We hope you’ll join us!
Work it. Live it. Keep it.
MidStrong is for life.