Life in our modern inactive world sees many of us sitting for long periods during the day, every day. Our bodies pay the price, muscles weaken, bones deteriorate, joints stiffen and ache, and we lose our energy and vitality, reducing the quality of our lives.

This can start early: from the age of 20 we start this degeneration and it accelerates if our daily activities do not contain enough movement or activity to keep our body strong.

But we have an easy solution to all of this: Strength training exercise protects our muscles, bones, joints, and keeps our metabolic engine revved up so we don’t gain excess fat. Here are some of the health benefits you can enjoy:

Prevents loss of muscle tissue: Adults who don’t strength train lose about half a pound per year. The type of cardiovascular or resistance activities does not stop this loss. Only strength training exercise that provides direct load to the muscles and bones will work.

Increase your metabolism – This is essentially the engine of the body and its condition governs the rate at which the body burns fuel. Simply rebuilding and re-toning lost and flabby weak muscles can increase your daily calorie burn by as much as 15 percent. This can make the difference between being overweight and being slim and trim.

Our muscles make up to 50 percent of our body weight and use more than 25 percent of the calories we eat, so their condition is vital for health and a healthy body weight.

Use this type of exercise to lose weight: After just 3 months of strength training, subjects in a research study lost about 5 pounds of body fat while eating 15 percent more calories. This shows the power of toned metabolism that stimulates muscle tissue.

You will look so much better – strong and toned muscles are tight and firm against your body and plump and ‘plump’ previously sagging skin to give your body a healthy, firm and shapely appearance. This is the opposite of sagging, which sags and hangs and makes you look years older than you should.

Reduce the risk of injury: The way you walk, sit and stand is influenced by the health and condition of a network of interlocking muscles. When you are strong and toned, your posture is better to help keep your body in a balanced template that is right for you.

Weak muscles cannot do this and your body sags and sags putting stress and pressure on parts of the body that are not designed for it. Strong muscles, bones, joints, tendons and ligaments protect and cushion each other and are less likely to give way under the stress of daily activities.

Improve the quality of your life – Once you start your exercise program and complete each session, you’ll discover many more personal benefits and reasons why keeping your body strong is so important to improving the quality of your life. There is nothing else that comes close to making you look, feel and perform better and therefore younger.

Improved levels of strength have many benefits in general living and will help you live a more active lifestyle, as it’s hard to sit still when you’re strong and fit. instead of seeing it as ‘over the hill and slowing down’, it will be ‘over the hill and speeding up’.