Stronger muscles can improve your posture and help keep your body in balance. Weight training can help to reshape problem areas, or areas with "stubborn fat" that is difficult to get rid of. The combination of a low-fat diet and aerobic activity burns total fat from all over your body. Weight training can increase your lean body mass and therefore increase your metabolism. An increased metabolism speeds up your body's natural process of breaking down and storing foods. Not only does strength training increase your physical work capacity, it also improves your ability to perform activities of daily living. You will be able to work harder and longer with the proper weight training …show more content…
Most to falls and broken bones in older adults can be linked to poor balance and flexibility. These injuries may not be extremely detrimental to someone of a younger age, but for older people they can end in significant disability and, in sometimes there may even be fatal complications. Strengthening exercises, when done properly and through the full range of motion, increase a person's flexibility and balance, which decrease the likelihood and severity of falls. Arthritis relief is another benefit to weightlifting for people aging. A study done by Tufts University using older men and women with severe knee osteoarthritis showed that weight training decreased pain by 43%, increased muscle strength and general physical performance, improved the clinical signs and symptoms of the disease, and decreased disability. This study concluded that this weight training regimen was just as effective, if not more, as medications used to treat the disease. Similar effects of strength training have been seen in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (Growing