As a Certified Personal Trainer & Sports Nutritionist, the most common reason clients ask me to help them, in the area of resistance training, is to change their appearance. I, too, fell in love with lifting weights, for aesthetic benefits.

Back in the 1980s, I began weight training because I liked the lean, toned look of the female bodybuilders of that era. I wanted to compete and learn how to live the bodybuilding lifestyle. Today, 27 years later, I can tell you, weight training does much more than just tone or build muscles.

Here are some of the added benefits of incorporating weight training into your fitness routine and healthy lifestyle.

1. Even though there are different opinions about how many calories a pound of muscle burns in a day, muscle still burns more calories than a pound of fat. Muscle is metabolically active tissue. If fat loss is part of your fitness goal, I encourage you to add weight training to your fitness program.
2. Weight training increases bone density. Studies have shown that the risk of osteoporosis is lower for people who are active, and especially those who do load-bearing, or weight-bearing activities at least three times a week.
3. The proper weight training program can increase athletic performance. The benefits of strength training to athletic performance are enormous and many. Not only is it an integral conditioning component for power athletes such as football and rugby players, performance in the pure endurance events can be improved with a well-structured strength routine, as well.
4. Traditional strength training is always good for you but another option is to focus on functional strength training. Functional training involves dynamic, whole body movements that make you stronger for real life activities like gardening, house work, shoveling snow, etc.
5. When we begin to see our bodies change in performance and appearance, our self esteem improves.
6. Exercise is a great way to blow off steam and reduce stress.