The Effects Of Muscle Exercises

Your body contains more than 600 muscles, which play roles ranging from helping your heart pump blood throughout your body to moving your fingers. With such a large portion of your body made up of muscles, it's important that you keep them healthy through regular muscle-strengthening exercises. Not only will these make your muscles healthy, but the benefits will also ripple through the rest of your body. Consult your doctor before beginning any new exercise regimen.

Physical Strength

An increase in physical strength is one of the primary benefits of muscle exercises. As you perform activities like lifting free weights, using weight machines or resistance exercises like pushups or pullups, you activate and rebuild muscle fibers. This increases the strength and size of the muscles in a process called muscular hypertrophy. Stronger muscles provide better structure to your body, which not only allows you to lift heavier objects, but also provides support to your core and joints, helping reduce problems with joint conditions, injury and pain.

Stronger Bones

Not only can strength-training exercises increase the overall strength of your muscles, but they can also help increase your bone strength, reducing your risks for bone-related diseases like osteoporosis. When you strength-train, your muscles pull on the bones in the area of the muscle groups being worked. This pulling action prompts your body to build stronger bone structure, the University of Arizona explains, increasing the overall strength of the bone.

Lasting Weight Loss

Regular strength training --- at least the twice-weekly muscle-building sessions recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention --- can help build toned muscles. The more toned your muscles are, the better chance you have of controlling your weight now in the future, suggests MayoClinic.com.

Combat Conversion to Fat

In the natural aging process, muscle is slowly converted to fat over time. You can combat this change by keeping strength-training exercises a part of your weekly routine, being sure to target all the major muscle groups, including the arms, legs, shoulders, core, glutes and chest. By combating the change of muscle to fat, you help prevent problems with obesity and excess body fat. This can reduce your risks for conditions like heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and even some forms of cancer.

Calorie-Burning Efficiency

The more muscle tissue you gain through muscles exercises, the more efficient your calorie-burning abilities become, MayoClinic.com reports. As such, building muscle at the same time as losing weight through aerobic exercise and diet can be beneficial, because you will be able to burn more calories and lose more weight over the long term due to the added burning efficiency.