Ways Bodyweight Exercises Will Help You Age With Grace

Whenever you hear about bodyweight exercises, what comes to your mind?

Weight loss, I guess.

Weight gain or weight loss; whichever is your primary goal, don’t forget that bodyweight exercises have much more to offer you. Bodyweight workouts come with benefits that are far beyond feeling and looking good or just improving your appearance.

Below are different ways by which you can improve your overall health by doing adopting bodyweight exercises programs. This type of exercise can help you maintain better hormonal, cardiovascular and cognitive health.

1. Lean Muscle Mass

Bodyweight is better for building and maintaining lean muscle. As you’ve probably learned, when it comes to maintaining a strong metabolism, building strength is very crucial. It is even more important as you age.

This is because bodyweight exercises are pretty effective at increasing lean muscle mass, which declines naturally as you get older.

The roles that muscle mass plays in maintaining a healthy weight are very significant. It is also one of the key factors that help to improve metabolic functions generally.

Muscle mass is crucial to improving hormonal balances, thyroid function and insulin sensitivity. The high rate of your basal metabolic also depends on the amount of lean muscle in your frame.

This means that, in order for you to maintain your weight at any given period, you will need more calories.

In case you haven’t noticed, muscular athletes can actually get away with eating too much? It is not because of any special daily training, it is because muscles have their own ways of burning more calories than fat does.

Building more muscle allows you to burn more fat, even while resting or just sleeping. You can as well enjoy an increase in the production of your growth hormone with bodyweight exercises.

Growth hormones are natural fountains of youth. They help us retain our natural ability to burn fat and lean body mass.

However, if you prefer cardio workouts such as swimming and running to strength exercises, there is good news. Lifting weights provides you with of enhanced strength and performance.

It further gives you more power to perform all sorts of exercises. Building strength in your core and back can be very useful while running.

Strengthening your shoulders can come in handy when you are swimming.

2. Better Heart Health

Generally, exercising causes your heart to work efficiently by becoming more effective at pumping blood stronger. This is a natural way to reduce the levels of blood pressure and enjoy improved blood circulation.

Just like any other muscles in the body, your heart is strengthened when you make it a routine to put it under more pressure. This way, the heart adapts and gains the ability to a better at what it does.

Over the years, strength-training workouts have also been tied to reduced risk of developing a heart attack or stroke and healthier levels of blood cholesterol.

In fact, performing strength-building exercise on a regular basis is also tied to increased longevity and less risk for cancer. This should be because this type of exercise helps to prevent the wastage of muscle mass and down regulation in the metabolic rate.

Health care providers are now recommending bodyweight exercises to their patients who are recovering from heart disease and heart attacks. Such patients are now advised to perform dynamic resistance exercises on a weekly basis, in order to build back their endurance and heart strength in a safe way.

3. Reduce Risk for Diabetes

Exercise is a natural solution to diabetes since it helps you to remove glucose (sugar) from your blood and encouraging the glucose to move into your muscles where it is stored as glycogen.

Then later used for energy. Bodyweight exercises also have better benefits to your tissues, organs and blood vessels. This is another benefit that comes with the process involved in converting blood sugar into energy.

High level of glycation end products are prevented from gathering up in the bloodstream. If this happens, it can result in damage to the body organs, blood vessels and body tissues.

4. Improve Mood

To some people, bodyweight exercise is the body’s natural Prozac. This is because exercises biologically helps to fight depression and reduces stress.

This has further being linked to improvements in emotional health, improved self-esteem and confidence, along with the ability to problem solve and enjoy better sleep.

Bodyweight exercises cause your body to releases endorphins, which are chemicals that life your mood by providing you with a natural high. This further helps you to improve low energy levels.

5. Help Maintain Cognitive Function

A performing regular strength training exercise also helps with longevity and reduces any damage to your DNA. All thanks to the anti-aging effects that is embedded in muscle mass.

Exercise helps to stimulate the hormone BDNF, which helps your brain cells to regenerate, even as you age.

Regular physical activities also lower inflammation and oxidative stress, which are associated with cognitive disorders such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease among others.

6. Improve Health of Joints and Bones

An increased mass provide protection of bones and joints. This is because; with stronger muscles you wouldn’t have to depend so much on your joints as you move around.

Exercises have also been proven to help with back pains and any pains in the hips, ankles and knees. Bodyweight workouts also help to increase bone strength and density.

With weight-bearing workouts, you can increase the fortification of bone reserves in your body, which will further serve as a protection to your skeletal frame.

Starting with a personal trainer is a good way to start. Visiting any of the best fitness centres around you will see to this.

Fred Schafer, the author of Over 50 Fit guide mentioned that bodyweight exercises are very important for preventing bone loss, fall and fractures as you age. This is especially crucial for women’s health, since they are at a higher risk of developing osteoporosis after their experience with menopause.