Lesser Known Benefits of Weight Lifting

Posted April 6, 2018 in Healthy Lifestyle No Comments »

Crossfit girlWeightlifting requires an exceptional amount of motivation, endurance, and discipline. Pushing through the pain and sweat requires a lot of mental strength in addition to physical strength. As such, the things you learn by lifting weights can be translated into other important areas of your life. Think about creating and sticking to a budget or even writing your first novel (the best stories come from personal experiences after all). Having the discipline, endurance, and strength it takes to train your body and mind are invaluable skills you can implement into your daily life.

Here are a few lesser-known ways weightlifting can benefit your life:

Finding Financial Success

Being financially successful involves the ability to push through impulsive buying and taking the occasional investment plunge. Being self-sufficient is essential for both budgeting and weightlifting. You are both your own enemy and ally when it comes to your money and your workouts. At the end of the day, the decision to finish one last set of reps or purchase that new watch is up to only you.

Experts at Earnest further elaborate on this idea, explaining, “part of self-efficacy is internal, and part of it is external … when you’ve seen yourself succeed at a financial goal, you’ll feel empowered to set another, and another, and another.” Sounds a lot like working out, right? Continuously setting those goals for yourself helps contribute to a consistent healthy growth, physically and financially.

Resting Metabolism

While weightlifting is great for increasing your overall strength and balance, it can also contribute to a better resting metabolism, which means you’ll burn more calories outside of gym hours. According to experts at Healthline, “weight training is more effective than cardio at building muscle, and muscle burns more calories at rest than some other tissues, including fat. Because of this, it is commonly said that building muscle is the key to increasing your resting metabolism — that is, how many calories you burn at rest.”

Burning more calories while moving throughout your daily routine is definitely a plus, but this also means you have more opportunities to enjoy an extra slice of pizza during your next cheat day without feeling too guilty.

Stimulate Your Creativity

Fitting in a workout routine requires planning, commitment, and a lot of strength to push through those mental blocks. With that being said, your weightlifting skills can actually be transferred to other areas of your life, specifically your creative side!

Think about it: while you are pushing your body to keep going, to not give up, you are also stimulating your mind. Let’s say you’ve been wanting to finish your first novel, start a blog, or paint more; weightlifting gives you the opportunity to find your focus and while you are pushing through your workout you also can push through that pesky writer’s block. This means that you can achieve more goals — physically and mentally —  and have more of those satisfying moments of achievement.

Just Get Started, No Excuses

While you may be hesitant to start weightlifting — it’s certainly intimidating at first — it’s important to consider the benefits you’ll reap from setting and meeting those new, challenging goals, even in places and aspects of your life you may have never expected. Finding the time to start can be tough, but pushing yourself to hire a personal trainer, join a class, or even watch a few YouTube videos will help you accomplish those important, meaningful accomplishments. Good luck!

 

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