Everyone knows that working out can help improve your both your fitness and overall health, but not everyone agrees on the best way to work out. Should you double down on cardio, build up your strength, or focus on your agility? Luckily, there’s one type of workout with plenty of health benefits, as well as building up your muscles and getting you in great shape: powerlifting. Here are just a few ways that powerlifting can improve your health, whether you’re looking to build up muscle, burn fat, or just want to feel and look healthier.
- Pain reduction: By strengthening your muscles, you can reduce the strain on other parts of your body. Strength training has shown to alleviate back pain in 80% of people dealing with lower back pain. Just make sure to use the correct powerlifting gear, like a training belt and wrist wraps, so you don’t accidentally injure yourself and cause more pain.
- Fat loss: Even if your focus is building muscle mass, powerlifting can help you reduce your fat content as well. Powerlifting burns a great many calories, and continues to help you burn after you’ve stopped lifting. By using short, intense bursts of effort instead of lower-level sustained effort, you continue to burn calories long after you’ve ended your workout.
- Full-body benefits: Because powerlifting incorporates moves designed to work every muscle group in your body, you’ll never have to worry about skipping leg day. The lifts used mean that every muscle is worked in a relatively balanced fashion, ensuring you see the benefits in every area of your body.
- Skeletal health: Research shows that powerlifting may have benefits even deeper than the muscles. Powerlifting can help to prevent the onset of osteoporosis, a degenerative condition that weakens the bones, and reduce your overall risk factor by increasing bone mass and strength.
If you’re looking to improve your health while also getting stronger, consider trying out a powerlifting workout. Even if you decide that powerlifting isn’t for you, you should be able to incorporate some of the basic principles into your daily workout routine. Doing so could improve your strength, promote fat loss, reduce pain, and overall strengthen your health across the board.