An Argument for Weight Lifting

Cardio is difficult, but weightlifting is impossible. That’s what many believe, and yet every year lots of people purchase gym memberships and then never go to the gym. Something in the back of these people’s minds must be telling them that there’s something to this whole weightlifting thing. That or they want to be able to watch a 46” TV while pedaling on a recumbent bike that has a computer screen on it with web access.

The truth is, of all athletes, weight lifters are the lazy ones. They do as little as possible to get the job done, and it’s less than you might think. If they don’t feel like running, they don’t run. You don’t really have that choice in sports like football or soccer. Weightlifters often don’t even do any cardio if their diet is okay. As for a weightlifter’s weekly exercise regimen, it’s laughable compared to what pretty much any other kind of athlete does. In football you train every day, sometimes two or three times a day. Triathletes train everyday too, running, bike riding, swimming, as long and as hard as they can, and wearing their iPod for as much of it as possible because they’re so insanely bored by it all.

Weightlifters don’t need iPods. They don’t get bored. Their workouts are short, intense, fun and constantly changing because of the highly adaptive nature of the body. There are so many different ways to lift that, if you wanted to, you could do a new routine every two or three weeks for the rest of your life! And you’d never have to wear a speedo!

You say that you know a lady who runs 6 miles every day? Good for her! Is she psychotic? I’m not kidding, think about it for a second.

A weight-lifter who knows what he’s doing goes to the gym three days a week on average, for about 45 minutes each time. Three days a week of lifting is good enough for many professional athletes, it's considered optimal for improving athletic performance, and since form follows function, if your body starts to perform better it will also start to look better. The take-home point; if 3 times a week is good enough for professional athletes, it's good enough for you.

As we age, we begin to lose skeletal muscle, a phenomenon known as Sarcopenia. The article Sarcopenia: The Mystery Of Muscle Loss, written by Chantal Vella, M.S., states that "any loss of muscle mass is of importance because there is a strong relationship between muscle mass and strength...With aging and inactivity, the most atrophy is seen in the fast twitch (FT) fibers which are recruited during high-intensity, anaerobic movements" Atrophy is muscle loss, and the fast twitch fibers are the biggest muscle fibers in the body, they make up the vast majority of your muscle mass; and that high intensity, anaerobic stuff, that's weightlifting.

It goes beyond merely looking great in a bathing suit (which weightlifting will do), it also helps to maintain and improve your strength, and a strong body is a healthy and attractive body. In three short weight-lifting sessions a week, you're not only maintaining precious muscle mass but also building new muscle.

Now, I’m not saying that laziness is a prerequisite for being a weightlifter, there is hard work involved, just not nearly as much as people might think.

So, my question to you is, when you consider the rewards, why not lift weights?