Did you know that a little bit of extra muscle tone can help you better survive the winter? Winter often means less time moving outdoors, exposure to viruses, and icy slips and falls. So, how does muscle help keep you burning off those holiday calories and stay safe and heathy through the season?
Muscle mass increases your basal metabolic rate (BMR). BMR is the number calories your body burns when you are at rest. While your heart, brain, kidneys, liver and lungs account for most of your non-active calorie burn, adding muscle will contribute to that calorie burn and help keep you slim. And even better, any movement of that additional muscle means even more calories burned. So, a little exercise goes a much longer way… who doesn’t want that?
Moving our muscles with regular exercise helps boosts immunity. Physical activity increases the body’s ability to fight new infections as well as help combat established diseases.
Muscle mass also helps sustain health. Skeletal muscle mass accounts for 40% of the total body weight and contains 50% of body proteins. New evidence suggests a relationship between muscle and healthy immune function. Muscles produce and release compounds which play an important role in the proliferation, activation, and distribution of some immune cells. Also, muscle is a major storage site for amino acids used by the body during infection or injury.
Fast twitch muscle fibers keep you on your feet. Fast-twitch fibers are used for short, powerful burst of energy, as opposed to slow-twitch fibers which are built for endurance (such as running and biking). We all tend to lose fast-twitch muscle fibers as we age unless we focus on using them. Building and sustaining fast-twitch muscle through strength training helps us better react to a fall or collision.
It’s never too late to start strength training and building that lean muscle mass.
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