As we age, why does weightlifting/resistance training make our bodies stronger/durable compared to laborious jobs that weaken our bodies

Question

Both tend to put stress on our bodies, why does one make us stronger and the other makes it weaker as we get older

In: 16

Answer 1

A proper weightlifting program uses progressive overloading, and rest and recovery periods.

Progressive overload means that over time, you increase the weights lifted, or lift the same weight for more reps / sets. This is one of the key distinctions between training and exercise. If an untrained person did 3 sets of 5 reps of bench press with a weight of 75 lbs., it would make them stronger, but if you kept doing that same workout for 6 months, you would not continue to get stronger. But if you add 5 lbs. to the bar each time you work out, you will keep getting stronger.

Rest and recovery periods are also needed—your muscles do not grow while you work out, the muscle fibers get slightly damaged with micro-tears by your workout (assuming progressive overload). It is during rest and recovery that the muscles repair themselves and grow.

Similarly, a job that involves hard labor will make a person stronger than a sedentary job, but only to a point. Your body will adapt to the workload you are doing, and then stop once it has adapted.

When you are constantly doing hard labor, you are putting a lot of strain not just on your muscles but also on your ligaments, tendons, and joints. These tissues do not grow as quickly as muscles, mostly because there is not as much blood flow. Overdoing it (either while lifting weights or doing hard labor) risks injury and wearing down your joints. Most of the time when someone is worn down or in pain after years of hard labor, it is their bones and joints that are injured, not their muscles.

If you are doing this labor 5 days in a row each week, you are also not getting enough rest in between for your body to fully recover. If you tried to do a bench press workout 5 days in a row every week, that would also not work well and you’d probably end up injured.

Becoming stronger through proper weightlifting can also help prevent injury from labor. One of the functions of muscles is to protect ligaments, tendons, and joints by stabilizing the spine, etc. and by taking the load that would otherwise get transferred to the joints and other tissues. Being stronger also means that each repetitive smaller load uses a lower percentage of your maximal strength, so it it easier than if you were fully exerting yourself all day.