From the Desk of Dr. Gottlieb...

To make the participation of our New Year’s resolutions more attainable, we have broken it down into three separate focuses for your health: Endurance, Strength and Structure. In this week's article we will focus on the second of those three separate and distinct factors to work on, to improve our overall health and fitness.

This week's article will cover the subject of STRENGTH training. There are of course many reasons to participate in a strength training regimen. Let's cover a few of them, right here, right now to get rid of any and all excuses that we may have.

Perhaps the best reason (that goes along with our most common New Year's resolution of losing weight), is that strength training increases, your body's metabolic rate, causing your body to burn more calories throughout the day. Yeah!!!!! What this means is that if we spend 20 minutes strength training in the morning, your body burns more calories, the rest of the entire day! That sounds like a really good trade-off. 20 minutes of exercise, giving you 24 hours of high calorie burning. Financial planners would call that a good "return on investment".

The second reason, that is most important to those of us reading the Chester County Moms blog is that strength training increases, and also restores bone density. Studies have clearly proven that consistent strength training, can increase bone density and prevent osteoporosis. And who wants to get that?

Another great reason for strength training is that it simply makes life easier. A wide variety of life-related injuries can be prevented by strengthening muscles and joints. For example, how many of us have injured ourselves putting groceries in or out of our car? How do you feel after carrying the baby seat from the car to the grocery store? How about just carrying the laundry up or down the stairs? Imagine if that got easier for you , and no longer was a danger to injure you. That's what strength training can provide!!

Probably the least concrete but certainly one of the most important reasons for strength training, is how it makes us feel personally. A stronger, leaner body can have a dramatic impact on posture and tend to make you feel better about your appearance. There is nothing like improved self-esteem and increased self-confidence!

These and many other benefits are so compelling that everyone in every health profession encourages their patients to participate in some kind of strength training program.

As Nike says: ‘Just Do It’.

If you have any questions about setting up a Strength training program, please do not hesitate to call. Tell our staff that you are on of the readers of the Chester County Moms blog, and for the entire month of January we will help set you up on a strength training program at no cost.

See you next week,

Dr. Cynthia Glendening
Dr. Andrew Gottlieb
Eagle Chiropractic, P.C.
http://www.eaglechiropractic.net/