7SECONDS Fitness
The Workout for Busy People
You want to know the benefit of physical fitness?
There is more than one benefit of physical fitness. With this text we just want to show you quickly why you want to spend 30 minutes per week on strength training.
(Hey, if you are in New Zealand, come to 7SECONDS Fitness! :-).
Why is it so important to gain muscle?
The benefit of physical fitness has been researched for many years.
Living in a mod-con society with new technology constantly evolving our lives are becoming less and less manual.
While in our parent's day they had to 'run 7 miles in the blistering snow to get to school', life is far from that these days. With buses and cars, the TV remote, elevators, escalators, cell phones, computers etc there is less and less need for us to move.
These days you can have your shopping home delivered, work from home, get your e-mail on your cell phone and research even the most obscure topics on the Internet.
This shift in the culture of our society has led to an increase in obesity and general decline in the fitness of the population.
Yet for all the trimmings technology has brought us, we would all agree that we don't have excessive amounts of time to wallow in.
The repercussions of not maintaining some physical activity, fitness and muscle tone range from relatively minor nuances such as a lack of energy to more serious ailments such as high cholesterol, risk from heart disease and osteoporosis.
Each of the 10 biomarkers of ageing is positively affected by strength training. That means, a main benefit of physical fitness is that you are ageing slower!
How 7SECONDS Fitness can help you getting the benefit of physical fitness
More Energy
Having more muscle means that every activity throughout the day is less taxing. That means having extra energy to enjoy life more.
Increasing Metabolic Rate
Your 'Basal' metabolic rate is your 'base' metabolic rate - when you are at rest.
Higher amounts of muscle increase the metabolism, energy and wellbeing.
One kilo of muscle burns between 70 and 90 extra calories per day. (The average man, at 75kg, has only about 10kg of muscle that burn between 600 and 1000 calories per day.)
Essentially your muscles are very energy consuming, the more muscle your body has the more of your stored energy (fat) will be used.
Loosing Fat
Adding muscle to your body increases your Basal Metabolic Rate which means you'll naturally burn more calories and lose fat 24 hours a day.
Adding just 2.5kg of new muscle will burn off 12 to 15kg of fat annually.
Many people who are on weight loss diets are not aware that often only about 25% of the weight loss is fat.
A very low calorie diet can result in 40-50% loss of lean tissue mass (muscle).
That means, losing 10kg of weight can result in reduction of only 2.5kg fat, but 5kg lean tissue mass (the rest is water)!
Cholesterol
Exercise lowers LDL (bad) cholesterol and increases HDL (good) cholesterol. These are two key markers of heart disease that are improved by exercise.
Reducing Risk of Osteoporosis
As we age our bones naturally get more porous and less dense. That makes them more brittle and prone to breaking.
Resistance training strengthens and adds density to bones slowing the natural deterioration aging causes.
Increasing Human Growth Hormone
We are not talking about the synthetic HGH that is constantly advertised over the Internet.
Resistance training causes your body to produce more of its own, perfect-for-you natural growth hormone.
Increased HGH is known to boost sexual potency, improve your sleep, improve memory, and decrease the wrinkles in your skin!
Increasing Testosterone
Resistance training naturally increases levels of testosterone, which delays the onset of andropause, also known as male menopause.
Looking Better and Increasing Self Esteem
Resistance training changes the composition of your body in two very positive ways. It increases lean body mass and decreases fat (if you keep your calorie intake the same).
In short, resistance training makes you look younger and fitter.
Reducing Constant Muscle Loss
Strengthening your body will not only make your daily activities easier but also assist in reducing muscle atrophy (muscle loss) that occurs to us as we get older.
Research* indicates that unless we regularly undertake strength training we lose more than 250g of muscle every year after the age of 25.
That is almost 4kgs of lean muscle by the time that we reach 40!
Increasing Sport Performance
The stronger your body is, the higher its threshold is for usage. Muscles play a major part in all movements in the body.
Stronger muscles will allow for more powerful movement.
Extending your Limits
What are you capable of?
What is your maximum?
Have you ever tried to push that limit?
Have you ever tried to extend yourself beyond what you thought possible?
Here you can easily see the benefit of physical fitness!
The healthier and fitter you are, the stronger the position you are in to test and set personal goals to achieve.
*Strength and Training by Global Health and Fitness and the Muscle fibre research from the University of California, San Diego.
We hope you found this information about the benefit of physical fitness helpful and interesting!
In case you have any more questions, please do not hesitate to contact us (please click here) 
Always trying to help you to understand and gain the benefit of physical fitness!
Enjoy your day,
Heide and Tim