Why Strength Train?

Excerpted from
The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution: The Slow Motion Exercise That Will Change Your Body in 30 Minutes a Week
By Fredrick Hahn, Michael R. Eades, M.D., Mary Dan Eades, M.D.

Most people think of strength training as something just for body builders and, absent any desire for a sculpted, rippling physique, not something of particular interest to the rest of us. But this common Perception has recently begun to change. Lately, we've begun hearing about the importance of strength training, not just in building bigger, stronger muscles, but also in preventing certain diseases, notably osteoporosis. Today you'll see a larger number of women-even older ones-turning up in gyms, taking an interest in pumping iron to strengthen weak bones. But, as it turns out, preventing osteoporosis is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the health benefits that science now attributes to weight training.

Recent medical research has demonstrated that strength training is the most effective way to achieve a healthier and fitter body. And unlike other forms of exercise that can take their toll on knees, ankles, hips, and shoulders, weight work, properly done, strengthens the muscles, joints, hones, and connective tissues while improving your overall health. In other words, the goal (and result) of strength training is to build you up, not beat you up.

It's easy to understand how strength training makes you strong, but how does strength training make you healthy? At the most basic level, it does so by improving the metabolic health of your muscular system and, consequently, most of the oilier systems of the body. Let's take a look at why.

Collectively, the muscular system is the largest organ in the body, nourished and cleansed by the most extensive network of Mood vessels. In fact, because the lion's share of your body's blood vessel (or vascular) system resides in your muscles, keeping your muscular system healthy of necessity enhances your vascular system. Contrary to common belief, most of your other organs, including the heart and lungs, exist to serve your muscular system. Improvements (or. for that matter, losses) here have an impact throughout your body.

The muscles you use when you exercise use the most blood, consume the most sugar and fat for fuel, produce the most heat, and require the most energy of all the body's systems. Not only is the muscular system the largest, most energy-consuming, heat-producing organ in tile hotly, it's the only one whose function you can directly improve through exercise. I here are no exercises you can do to improve your liver Junction or kidney function or your gastrointestinal tract function. And, although it may surprise you, there isn't much you can do to directly improve your heart and lung function. (As you'll learn in coming chapters, the perceived improvement in the heart and lungs that occurs with exorcist? is actually just an improvement in tile muscles' ability to lake up oxygen from the blood.) Hut all the body's organ systems do have one dreadful thing in common: they deteriorate with age. That's right, the older you get, the less efficiently your liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, and all the rest work. Even your muscular system deteriorates with age.

The Secret of the Big, Fast Burn

Exercise scientists have identified four different types of muscle fibers: slow-twitch fibers (the smallest ones), two types of intermediate-twitch fibers (slightly larger and slightly faster), and fast-twitch fibers (the biggest, fastest fibers of all). The types differ not just in their size and the speed with which they can lire and contract, but in their use in the body. The big fast-twitch fibers, for instance, are designed for situations requiring explosive power of short duration. Large predators, lions for example, have great numbers of fast-twitch fibers in their muscles so they can muster the explosive speed and power necessary to bring down large prey. The slower fibers, while unable to generate the zero-to-sixty power of their bigger cousins, have the edge in endurance. Animals (including humans) who lope along at a slow, steady pace for mile after mile after mile have a preponderance of smaller, slower muscle fibers. To envision the difference, bring to mind the image of the marathon runner, or the giraffe gracefully ranging across the open savannah.

We all have some of each liber type in our muscles, although tile ratios (which are set at birth) vary from muscle to muscle and person to person. Most great athletes, for instance, are genetically endowed with an abundance of big, fast fibers that give them the ability to explode off the line of scrimmage, slam a 95-mile-an hour serve past an opponent;, slap a puck into the net, or leap impossibly high to bring down a sure homer. They're simply not like the normal Joe, a fact that you can readily verify on any Sunday afternoon in the fall. If you watch an NFL game, you'll see big, fat linemen with their bellies hanging out, who look like they should be in front of the tube with a beer watching the game instead of earning millions of dollars blocking other big, fat linemen. How can these guys look so totally out of shape and be so quick and powerful? Luck off the genetic draw-they've got a high percentage of big, fast fibers to call on.

Contrast the physiques of the NFL linemen with those you see in body-building magazines-with their big. ripped, glistening muscles, these body builders make the NFL linemen look like a joke. So, why don't these perfectly chiseled body builders (who often weigh as much as the linemen) play in the NFL? Because, in most cases, they can't; they have neither the speed nor the explosive power required to compete in that arena. While they have trained to make their rippling muscles larger and stronger, they've been endowed with far fewer fast-twitch fibers.

When you join the Slow Burn Fitness Revolution, you vastly improve all your muscle fibers; you'll strengthen the slow ones, the intermediate ones, and even the fast ones. You'll make them all bigger and more metabolically fit, but you won't alter their ratios. Like it or not, you can only work with the genetic endowment you've got, with the goal of making yourself the leanest, strongest, healthiest you possible. (We'll explore this topic in even greater detail in a later chapter.)

This is good news for many women, who might want the health benefits of strength training but fear turning into the bulked-up freaks that grimace from the covers of muscle magazines. Set those fears aside. Women-without assistance from body-building steroids and other 'muscle-building chemicals' - simply do not bulk to gargantuan proportions no matter how much iron they pump. They'll build some lean muscle, lose some fat, and become stronger, quicker, and more flexible. They'll build stronger bones and become more metabolically lit from their Slow Burn workout, but they won't turn into Ms. Incredible Hulk.

No matter what your gender is or what genetic hand you've been dealt regarding your muscle liber makeup, age takes its toll. As we age, we watch our nimbleness and quickness fade, because our fast-twitch fibers begin to lose their strength and size. Things that once seemed easy-drifting over to snag a fly ball in center field, negotiating a mogul run on skis, bobbing and weaving through traffic for an easy lay up, smashing a cross-court shot-become a challenge. As age continues to have its way with us, simpler things-putting cans of food on the shelf, lifting a small suitcase into the trunk or airline overhead bin, even carrying a bag of groceries-can exceed our capacity. The elderly can no longer do the simple things they took for granted in youth because time has robbed them of their muscle mass arid, especially, the strength of their big, last fibers.

Traditional weight workouts, particularly those designed for women and the elderly, usually involve sets of multiple repetitions using light weights ostensibly designed to reduce the risk of injury and increase stamina-or so the thinking goes. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. When you call upon a muscle to lift a given weight, the small, slow-twitch fibers respond first. II i he weight is light, they can "tote the note" for many repetitions without fatigue. With more weight, however, these smaller fibers begin to fail, and the intermediate ones step up to the plate; they, too, can hang in for many repetitions with a lighter weight, lifted quickly. Only when the weight is heavy enough to fatigue both these fiber types do the fast-twitch fibers come off the bench and join the workout. And until they do, your workout isn't improving their size, their strength, or their metabolic health. Nor will it improve to any great degree your performance of activities that require bursts of power, whether that's smashing a forehand volley, cracking a line drive, lifting a toddler to your shoulders, or jumping out of the path of a bus. If you want to improve your performance in sports that require quick, explosive, powerful movements, such as tennis, football, baseball, racquet ball, basketball, or skiing, or if you'd just like the simple strength dependent activities of life to be simple again, you'll need to strengthen your big, fast-twitch fibers-however many you may have-and there's no quicker or more effective way to do that than by joining the Slow Burn Fitness Revolution.