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Add Strength Training to Your Workout! Our Great, Great Grandmothers Strength Trained.

By Cindy | February 2, 2008

Your great-great grandmother strength trained daily. Her household responsibilities included carrying wood into the home to keep the fires warm, gathering water from the spring or well in buckets, milking cows, and possibly moving feed to tend to the animals. In the home, cooking was demanding from kneading dough, moving cast iron pots and pans, to stoking the fire and cleaning. The laundry was a tremendous exercise of arm strength with the scrubbing boards and lye soap cleanings, and hanging the laundry and beating rugs was no small feat. Scrubbing floors and any number of chores without the use of modern day electricity required strength. Walking and horseback riding were the modes of transportation.

Studies and scientific evidence were unnecessary for great great grandma to stay fit. Her family’s survival depended upon her strength. Our ancestors lived a physical lifestyle using their muscles in day-to-day activities. Because of technology and modern day conveniences, a healthy lifestyle, today, requires artificial stimulation through “current strength training methods.” We know what is good for the body, yet as a nation, we are more unhealthy than ever before. Even though our lifespans are increasing, preventative measures to deal with lifestyle choices are ignored by a large portion of the population. What’s happening?

No longer is our day-to-day survival based on our physical exertions. Modern day conveniences such as machinery replacing large laborious tasks, the invention of washing machine, dryer, refrigerator, running water, and easy access to prepared foods are only a few examples of changes to our lifestyle. Our ancestors had to make, grow, and hunt for their food which required physical forces on all the systems within the body. Today, the basic process of gathering the laundry and getting the dishes into the dishwasher expends some calories, but doesn’t tax our muscles very much.

With the science to back up the importance of the muscular system, it is clear that strength training is an essential component to a healthy lifestyle. Since our immediate survival (the effects of our lack of activity tends to come at the end of our lifespan) doesn’t depend upon our physical exertions, modern day strength training is necessary to tax our body’s muscles.

There is a huge amount of trepidation among women to “strength train.” We are in an age where you have to adapt to strength training to fully support your healthy lifestyle. Our great-great grandmothers strength trained through the lifestyle they lived. Women are nervous to start, but I want to help you realize there’s nothing to be nervous about. There are so many benefits in working your muscles. The focus on the scale and fat took too far of a leap in priority over the importance of overall body composition.

Do you want to see real results? It’s time to take up strength training. I’ll discuss the full benefits in a later post, but I do want to leave you with one very important fact as you’re shaking your head at me and thinking, “Yeah, whatever…”

“every pound of new muscle uses 30 to 40 calories a day at rest for tissue maintenance, whereas a pound of fat uses only about 2 calories a day. In other words, muscle is 15 to 20 times more active than fat.”¹

What does that mean? Higher metabolism, all day long, more efficient body. If you’re in maintenance mode, then this means you can eat more calories. If you want to lose weight, then it might mean a temporary increase in weight (as you increase muscle mass), but a more efficient body to burn calories over time. When combined with cardiovascular activities, you will see a noticeable difference in fat loss and muscle gain through body measurements.

I will discuss strength training in depth as it applies to you as a mom. My goal is to convince you of it’s importance and how to training right. Over the next several weeks, I will post on the following topics:

• The benefits of strength training
• You will not look like a bodybuilder
• An inside look at what your muscles are doing
• Opposites attract…It’s a balancing act
• Endurance versus strength
• Ways to use your body
• Understanding the difference in equipment choices
• Individual exercises illustrated with explanations of their importance to your body

Just as we want to train our children to be competent in Reading, Writing and Arithmetic–the foundations of a sound education, your muscles are one of the top three elements of living a healthy lifestyle (cardiovascular exercise, anaerobic exercise, and diet).

Is there a question you have about strength training that you would like me to include in the above discussions? What are your perceptions on working your muscles?

Reference: Westcott, Wayne, Building Strength and Stamina , 2nd. Edition, (Champaign, IL: 2003) 9.

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Topics: Fitness Knowledge |