I am unashamedly biased when it comes to muscle. I crave muscle mass! I never have enough and I always want more! I know I’m compulsive in this area. I don’t expect anyone to share my obsession for muscle, although I know there are many who do.
However, today I’m talking to the large percentage of the population who give little, or no, thought to their own muscle mass. It’s a wider spectrum of people than you might guess.
Maybe you look lean and fit, and exercise regularly. Maybe you eat extremely healthy every day, which is more than I can say for myself. Maybe you’re the guy who brags he is still the same weight he was in high school. Maybe you run marathons or lead spin classes. Maybe you’re very active and doing your best to take care of yourself physically.
Or you might be toward the other end of the spectrum.
Maybe you’re obese and subsist largely on junk food. Maybe you’re a little pudgy and play softball on weekends. Maybe you’ve lost weight a few times, but keep putting it back on plus a little extra each time. Maybe you’re like me and you started putting fat on way too easily once you hit 40. Maybe you’ve never tried to lose weight before, but you are finally ready.
Regardless of where you land on the spectrum, whatever your condition and whatever your situation, muscle mass is the best friend you didn’t know you needed.
If you are not actively pursuing muscle mass through some kind of strength training, you are selling yourself short. You are missing out on the potential health benefits and you are setting yourself up for problems down the road.
To those of you near the fat end of the spectrum, adding more muscle mass can be the edge you need to finally win your battle against the bulge. Muscle mass is not magic and it’s no guarantee you’ll be lean. In fact, I had tons of muscle mass on me when I was fat. However, there is no doubt all that muscle made it a lot easier for me when I finally decided to lose the fat.
And to those of you near the thin end of the spectrum, you’re doing many good things but you missed something very important. Activity is good. Taking a walk after dinner is good. Getting your steps in everyday is good. Playing sports is good. Doing cardio is good. But if all you do is play the zero-sum game with your body weight, you are playing a loser’s game. And to that guy who brags he is still at his high school weight. If you are the same weight you were 20 years ago and you haven’t been strength training, you have almost certainly lost muscle weight and replaced it with fat weight.
Playing the zero-sum game with your body is like living paycheck to paycheck. You aren’t planning for old age or saving for a rainy day. Sure, you are burning off the calories you eat every day and you aren’t gaining weight according to the scale. But much in the same way inflation gradually robs the buying power of your money, you are most likely gradually losing muscle mass and replacing it with fat without ever seeing a change on the scale.
Even beyond that, you are missing out on the potential benefits of actually gaining muscle mass. To do that, you need to consciously choose to invest in strength training to grow muscle mass for the future.
The old saying ‘use it or lose it’ is a great sentiment, but it’s not quite right. All activities use muscles to one degree or another. But just using a muscle is not enough to make it grow, or even maintain it. You have to stress the muscle by putting a load on it. It’s not as catchy, but the saying should be ‘load it or lose it.’
Or maybe it should be ‘overload it or lose it.’ That’s what strength training does. It exposes muscles to loads they are not used to. Loads that are near, or even beyond, what the muscles can handle. In response to that load, or stimulus, the muscles grow stronger and bigger.
Life is much like trying to go up a down escalator. If you stand still, you go down. If you jog, you can maintain position. But you have to run to go up. The escalator always wins in the end, but the sooner you start running, the higher you can go and the longer you can stay on the escalator. And physically speaking, that is really the goal: stay upright and stay on the escalator! Adding muscle mass can help you go up the down escalator of life.
My working title for this article was If You Aren’t Strength Training, You’re a Dumb Ass! But that seemed kinda harsh, so I went with the man’s best friend angle. However, if you aren’t strength training, I believe you are making a dumb mistake. You are neglecting the single largest component of the human body. If you’re a man with about 15% body fat, the rest of you is approximately 15% bones, 20% organs, 10% other stuff, and 40% MUSCLE! You are more muscle than anything else!
Muscle mass can be a powerful ally in the inevitable battles against age, gravity, hormones, toxins, injuries, bad habits, disease, stress, laziness, and a dozen other things that come along to rob you of vitality, or possibly even your life!
Wow, for a guy who once quadruple-spaced an English paper in high school (Hey, the teacher said it had to be two pages, so I made it two pages!), I sure can ramble on! OK, so let’s get to the good stuff. Here are some of the many ways muscle mass is your best friend:
Muscles burn calories. It requires energy just to maintain muscle tissue. So the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn, even doing nothing! And when you do start moving, bigger muscles burn more calories. So once again, the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn. Win-Win, Baby!
Muscles fight fat storage. Muscles store glucose for energy. The more muscle mass you have, the more glucose your muscles can store. This means instead of your body converting glucose to fat and storing it around your waist, it will take that glucose and store it in your muscles. A 12 year study with over 10,000 men found strength training superior to cardio exercise for avoiding or minimizing abdominal fat storage. For health and aesthetic reasons, your belly is the last place you want to store fat.
Muscles fight diabetes. The more muscle mass you have, the less likely you are to develop Type II diabetes. As mentioned above, muscles store glucose for energy, so they help lower, and keep lower, your blood sugar levels. Once again, the more muscle mass you have the more blood sugar your muscles can store. Muscles also help keep you insulin sensitive, which is the opposite of insulin resistant. Sensitive = good! Resistant = bad! When you have more muscle mass, your pancreas doesn’t have to pump out as much insulin to maintain blood sugar levels in the body’s desired range. This means less wear and tear on your pancreas, not to mention all the other systems in your body that will benefit from not being exposed to chronic high blood sugar levels.
Muscles fight osteoporosis. And they keep your tendons and ligaments strong too. Increased muscle strength is directly tied to (literally, ha!) increased tendon and ligament strength and also increased bone density. The way to build muscle mass is through strength training. Strength training comes in many forms, but one way or another you expose your muscles to stress or load (e.g. doing push ups or lifting a dumbbell) and in response to that stress, your muscles grow stronger. All the connected ligaments and tendons and bones are exposed to that same load or stress, and they will all grow stronger as well. Building stronger muscles = stronger tendons = stronger ligaments = stronger bones. That sounds like a Win-Win-Win-Win!
Muscles boost testosterone. I wish I could tell you simply having more muscle mass increases testosterone levels, but I haven’t found the research to back that up yet. However, there is no doubt that the process of building muscle mass via strength training absolutely boosts testosterone levels significantly! Higher testosterone levels leads to more muscle mass and also makes you more resistant to storing abdominal fat. Our testosterone levels tend to drop as we get older. Lower testosterone is a gateway to many bad things: depression, abdominal fat storage, muscle loss, lack of energy, lack of motivation, and many other very bad no good things. All of which, ironically, lead to even lower testosterone, so it’s a gateway to a nasty downward spiral that feeds upon itself. Don’t go there! Strength training helps you fight declining testosterone levels.
Muscles fight falls and accidents. Our balance gets worse as we get older. I noticed mine starting to drop off in my late 30’s. The stronger your muscles are, the more you can compensate and recover when your balance lets you down. Falls are the leading cause of injury and death for older Americans. Falls are oftentimes the beginning of a rapid downward spiral in health for the elderly. A fall might cause a broken hip or head injury, which can mean surgery followed by inactivity and muscle loss, which can lead to another fall. It can go downhill quickly after that. Seniors with lower muscle mass are more likely to suffer injuries and death from falls. The more muscle mass you have, the better you can compensate for decreased balance and hopefully avoid a fall that might have been your last. And don’t write this one off as something only the elderly need to worry about! Your balance can decline sooner than you might think. And if you want more muscle mass when you’re older, the best time to build and maintain it is before you get older.
Muscles make you happy. There are quite a few layers to this one. Any exercise can boost your mood. However, the more intense and demanding the exercise, such as strength training, the more mood-elevating endorphins your body will release. You can enjoy this high during the workout and up to several hours afterward. There are many other positive chemical responses to strength training, both immediate and long term, a few of which are testosterone, serotonin, and BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor).
Beyond the chemical benefits, strength training can provide an escape from the worries of the day. You could take a walk around the block and actually come back more stressed than when you left because you had time to dwell on your problems, but intense strength training requires your immediate focus. You need to be in the moment, which allows you to forget about your daily cares, at least for a little while anyway. Completing a hard workout also provides a sense of accomplishment, which boosts confidence. Confidence is an integral component of happiness. As you strength train and become stronger and stronger, you see the positive results of your repeated efforts. As you set goals along the way and reach them step by step, you feel empowered and more in control of your life. All of these things are components of happiness. There is far more to life and happiness than muscles and strength training, but these are a few things we can control and they certainly don’t hurt the overall cause. And I haven’t even gotten to the stage where you see a difference in the mirror. When you see your muscles grow and/or your waist shrink, it boosts your confidence even more and adds to your sense of control, accomplishment, and empowerment. All good stuff!
Muscles fight cancer and other diseases. More muscle mass reduces your risk of developing cancer in the first place. And if you still get cancer anyway, more muscle mass improves your prognosis for a full recovery. Extra muscle mass makes you more resistant to many illnesses. And if you do contract some disease, more muscle mass is linked to better outcomes in most, if not all, cases. Your immune system needs an array of amino acids to function properly. Almost every other system in the human body depends on amino acids, to one degree or another, as well. The body has storage systems for storing nutrients it may need in the future. Fat is stored in fat cells. Glycogen is stored in the liver, blood, and muscle tissue. The storehouse for amino acids is the muscles themselves. The more muscle mass you have, the more amino acids are readily available to keep your immune system strong. Under extreme conditions, your body can also use the stored protein in your muscles to support your critical organs and keep you alive. Nice!
Muscles make you smart. I know, I know! How do I explain all the muscle-heads who seem dumber than a box of rocks. Well, just think how stupid they’d be without all that muscle! But seriously, studies have consistently found a connection between an individual’s muscle strength and their cognitive function. More muscle doesn’t literally make you smarter, but having more muscle mass and doing the strength training to get it will help your brain function closer to its full potential. Strength training doesn’t just make your muscles grow! Studies show brain size actually increases when previously sedentary subjects begin strength training. To be fair, cardio exercise boosts brain function as well.
Muscles fight dementia and Alzheimer’s. Muscle mass doesn’t just improve brain function now, but it can help delay or avoid the onset of age related cognitive decline and disease. Muscle mass and strength training greatly reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer’s, dementia, or even just mild cognitive impairment. And even if you already have symptoms of cognitive decline, it’s not too late to begin strength training. One study followed subjects with impaired cognitive function, ranging from 55 to 86 years old, as they began strength training twice per week. When the subjects were retested six months later, their scores on cognitive tests were significantly improved. The control group, which did stretching exercises in place of strength training, did not see improved scores! Score another point for muscle mass and strength training!
There are even more benefits from muscle mass I didn’t cover. When it comes to health and longevity, muscle mass really is a man’s best friend! And the more muscle mass you have, the better off you will be. Obviously, I’m not advocating steroids and growth hormone to pack on unnatural amounts of muscle. That would be counter-productive. But I AM advocating consciously, purposefully, and maybe even a little bit obsessively, building muscle mass through a consistent program of intense strength training!
As always, thank you for reading! Have a great day!
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