The Importance Of Resistance Training

Dr. Jordan Seda, PT, DPT, OCS, CSCS, FRCms, CCPC, CSAC

I don’t want to get bulky. 

Isn’t deadlifting bad for your back?

I don’t have any time to get to the gym?

These are a few of many narratives describing why people might omit strength training from their lives. 

Our bodies are magnificent! If you have observed an acrobat from Cirque Du Soleil, watched a strongman competitor move a 4x4 by himself and/or witnessed Usain Bolt run faster than you could have imagined, you can appreciate how we can perform tasks that some would deem impossible! Nonetheless, there is one thing that will give each of these athletes the highest likelihood of performing at their best and with less of an injury risk: resistance TRAINING!

This is not to say that every elite-level athlete is resistance training (at least I can not prove it), but I would be surprised if it were not at the very least a semi-regular part of their respective exercise programs. Surely, the strongman competitor in the example above would place a greater emphasis on it, but we know how important it is for runners, other sport participants and for general health!

Resistance training, as everyone knows, is essential for providing a stimulus great enough to build muscle. You could train at higher intensities for greater strength gains or lesser intensities for hypertrophy or endurance-based sports. Nevertheless, our bodies require different amounts of load, duration, speed and stretch depending on our physical needs. When programmed effectively, any athlete could acquire a greater capacity to perform; whether it is by fatiguing less quickly, moving with greater ranges of motion, lifting more weight, etc. 

Before moving on, I just wanted to address the notion that increasing flexibility is the most important means of decreasing injury risk and improving performance. It is not. If you are a yogi or dancer, certainly being able to move through greater ranges of motion will make for an easier time and allow you to perform more complex movements. However, if your muscles and ligaments can stretch, but you cannot control for the amount of stretch, it would be equivalent to you swimming for 1 mile in the ocean, getting tired and not knowing how to tread water. Resistance training can help you here! Performing exercises that lengthen your tissues at submaximal loads will, over time, teach your body to own its ranges of motion. No need to tread water when your body knows what it is doing and doesn’t fatigue so quickly!

Now you might be thinking, “But I am not an athlete so why does this matter to me?”

It is all about giving you the greatest opportunity to succeed in every life situation. Marathon runners need to run for miles and miles. How can this be accomplished if your muscles fatigue before you want them to? Office employees might be required to sit for hours at a time. How can you do this without pain if your back starts to fatigue? How can you reach under your desk to retrieve the pen you just dropped without feeling discomfort when you return to sitting? Resistance training. If you make your body strong, it will likely not let you down when you perform daily activities. It will also be less likely to let you down while you exercise. You will be able to run further, lift more weight or jump higher if you provide your body with the appropriate amount of resistance training. 

Resistance training is just one piece of the overall recipe for success, however. It is an essential piece, but would be less helpful if you do not sleep enough, do not monitor nutrition and are constantly stressed out. Do not forget that our capacity to perform is dictated by a multitude of factors and doing your best to address them all is key.

So get out there and find someone to help you begin your journey with resistance training.