Why Building Lean Muscle Mass Is an Absolute Necessity for a Healthy Life

Whether you want to excel at sports by being stronger or staying in shape, recent research reveals that building lean mass, irrespective of gender or age, offers several amazing health benefits. This doesn’t imply that you have to be built like a professional fighter, but a healthy amount of lean muscle is very important. Here’s why.

Counters Obesity

Almost 70% Americans are either overweight or obese, which is a frightening statistic. A lot of people tend to resort to quick fixes advertised as “lose X weight in Y weeks” in the form of gimmicky machines or questionable drugs. Not only are these misleading, but they also do not address the fundamental issue, that is calorie intake vs. output. Obesity stems from sustained energy imbalances, meaning consuming much more in terms of calories than you need. This is your intake and can be controlled through dieting. The big impact, however, can be made by targeting energy expenditure through workouts and building lean body mass. A better amount of lean body mass leads to a higher Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), meaning a thinner, fitter you.

Battles Diseases

If you are sick and your body is under tremendous stress, your immune system turns itself up a few notches. This is when your nutritional needs change too. To support your immune system, you will have to give your body a lot of protein, as much as 4-5g protein per kilo of body weight, and just a targeted diet doesn’t cut in. In this sort of a situation, the body begins to break down your muscle. If you have built a good amount of lean body mass, your body will be able to compensate for the lack of protein and fight the illness more effectively. You can use anabolic steroids to build muscle mass as well.

Builds Stronger Bones

One of the biggest issues related to aging is frailness and the onset of osteoporosis, arthritis and other bone-related issues. They cause broken bones and falls in the later stages of life and are extremely serious issues. You would be surprised to hear that building a sufficient amount of lean body mass does wonders to preserve bone density in the future. Lean body mass in itself has a number of components that cannot be increased normally, so you will have to build skeletal muscle mass to increase your lean muscle mass, which in turn builds superb bone density and strength.

Conclusion

Besides these, lean body mass can also counter and eventually reverse insulin resistance and Type 2 Diabetes, which is a huge boost. It’s not only professional body-builders and athletes who benefit from building lean muscle mass. It has multiple long-term benefits for anyone who takes the time and effort to work out. It is an investment in your future, one that you might not consider worthwhile now but will surely appreciate when you are sick or older. You must hence start off by having your body composition analyzed and then regularly monitor your lean muscle mass changes and understand clearly where you stand.

Author Bio: Terrance Fisher is a fitness instructor and personal trainer based in Florida. He has dedicated his life to helping people get and stay fit. He runs a lifestyle and fitness blog where he talks about various workout routines, use of anabolic steroids and much more.