lean Muscle

1. Muscle increases bone density

Our muscles’ main job is to move the skeleton around, and the skeleton supports the structure and shape of our bodies. Meaning that the skeleton bears the weight of our entire body. 

Muscles are attached to bone (via tendons) and act as the drivers of movement. It takes a lot of force to move your skeleton around! 

So much force that it actually causes changes in your bone the more (or less) you move.

Wolff’s law – one of my favorite physiological processes in the body – essentially says that Form Follows Function – and this explains how increased lean muscle mass will increase bone density. 

Basically, the more load you put on a bone, the more it will build and remodel its own structure to support that load. More density generally means more strength when it comes to your bones.

Weight training is the ultimate load-bearing exercise to not only build lean muscle but to increase bone density. You can also build bone from impact activities like walking, running, hopping, or skipping.

How interesting is that – that our skeleton is dynamic and changes based on how we move?

Of course, the opposite is true as well, without load placed on the body our skeletal system will remodel with less density. The best example of this is how astronauts lose bone density after spending time in space. But spending too much time on the couch watching Netflix isn’t doing anything for your bone health. 

It really is a move it or lose it scenario! 

2. Lean muscle reduces pain

This reason to build lean muscle is near and dear to my heart! Back pain is commonly caused by a lack of muscle strength and/or flexibility. Our low back, hips, and pelvis are all stabilized by muscle – pain and/or injury is often is the result of inefficient movements and poor posture.

Muscle is layered in our bodies – some muscles are deep and others are closer to the surface. 

Specifically, when we’re talking about spine health the deeper muscles are considered to be stabilizers – there are some teeny tiny muscles that do a lot of spinal stabilization and segmental movements.  

The small muscles aren’t glamorous – no one ever trains their stabilizers for show. Like the multifidus, this little group of muscles are supposed to be contracted prior to moving any of your limbs – super important to spinal stabilization!!

I’m sure you have all heard that having a strong core is what leads to a healthy back – this is true, but probably not what you think. 

Washboard abs or a “six-pack” may look sexy, but it’s not stabilizing your back. Yes, to train to the point of having that aesthetic you probably have other strong core muscles – but your rectus abdominis (the six-pack muscle) main function is to pull your torso forward, or help you to literally sit up – not particularly helpful in stabilizing the spine. 

Building a strong core involves building a lot of not so glamorous muscles, and can be done in a lot of different ways. I do give my patients some general recommendations for how to build their core to help reduce back pain – that however is not the purpose of this post – it generally involves working on balancing and posture moves (again, hiring a trainer or PT is going to help exponentially in this process). There has been some great research on the benefits of strength training on pain, specifically back pain

3. lean muscle lowers blood sugar 

Insulin sensitivity = your body is responding to insulin and storing glucose appropriately to reduce blood sugar. 

This is a good thing! High blood sugar is a disease called diabetes – you may have heard of it. 

High blood sugar can lead to a whole lotta problems, including: 

• • Decreased immune function
  • Poor vision & blindness
  • Erectile dysfunction
  • Cardiovascular disease 
  • Limb amputation

But this post is about how we can decrease our blood sugar levels with exercise and through building muscle. 

Remember that muscle is its own organ system, the most metabolically active organ system! It takes a lot of energy to move your body around!

Exercise alone can increase our body’s glucose consumption for 2 hours due to the energy needs of the activity. 

But wait – there’s more!

A single bout of exercise can increase insulin sensitivity for at least 16 hours post-exercise!! 

Physical training (building more muscle mass and endurance) increases this effect!! So the benefits increase with more regular training!

The metabolic effects of exercise, specifically building lean muscle, become more favorable with more training – improving lipid metabolism and your liver’s production of glucose (yes your body makes its own glucose!). 

4. Improved immune function

Earlier I mentioned that muscle is the most metabolically active tissue in the body – part of being metabolically active is secreting its own signaling factors. lean muscle secretes signaling factors to your immune system to help activate it in a more timely manner. Building and maintaining lean muscle mass has been shown to help maintain immune function in the elderly through this process. Additionally, muscle also secretes testosterone and estrogen which helps also aging.

Muscle also requires a lot of blood flow, when you build muscle you also build more blood vessels to reach the new muscle – this new blood flow brings fresh oxygen and nutrients to the tissues for repair and allows for better circulation of the above-mentioned signaling factors and the entire immune system. 

Lymph movement is dependent on muscle contraction – it’s the number one way the lymph moves around your body – and lymph is the cleanup crew for the body – it collects and cleans out all the waste products from the millions of biochemical reactions that are happening in your tissues all day every day. When you’re sick, lymph collects all the bad guys and flushes them out. 

5. Additional benefits to strength training

It’s all fine and good if your goals include looking fine in your yoga pants, but did you know you are getting so much more benefit from strength training than just looking fly? There are SO many health benefits to increasing lean muscle mass in your body, but there is really only one way to build significant muscle – weight training. 

And guess what? There are benefits to weight training beyond just building muscle!

• • Improved mood
  • Increased brain function – cognition
  • Increased confidence
  • Reduce anxiety & depression
  • Reduce fatigue and tension

Did you know that building muscle has so many more benefits than aesthetic?

Let me know in the comments if you found this article helpful!