Effects of Strength Training - 3

Use it or lose it, baby.  When we work with weights, we help maintain our flexibility, mobility, and balance.

Flexibility is how elastic our muscle tissue is.  We think of it, often, as whether we can bend over and touch our toes.  Flexibility definitely has a role in that process—those of us whose hamstrings protest about the process could use a bit more in the flexibility department—but mobility is also key.  If the many joints of our spine or our hip joints don’t have any mobility, we’re going to be out of luck bending, no matter how flexible our muscles are.

 

Balance is what keeps us from falling over when we try.

 

All three of these skills are enhanced when we do strength training.  (There’s a theme here:  we adapt as we work!)  Moving our bodies and our weights through space requires that we deploy our flexibility, mobility, and balance in appropriate degrees to meet the needs of the task at hand.  Practice makes perfect.

 

Go practice!