Carolyn Hansen: Strength training strengthens your immune system too

Regular strength training exercises can also strengthen your immune system.

Your immune system is an amazing inner machine that does an incredible job of defending the body against invading micro-organisms, so it’s good to know there are active ways to increase its strength.

The immune system is not just one component but a highly complex system of cells/lymphocytes and organs/lymph nodes. It functions by seeking out and destroying any foreign organism that invades the body.

Regular strength training exercises provide long-term immune protection. They introduce adaptations that enable the body to withstand training stress and recover more efficiently. In effect, when you strength-train regularly, you’re providing a protective shield to your body against invading diseases.

Minimal stress hormone response combined with protein synthesis shows how strength training improves more than just body composition, muscle force, and mobility. It actually makes the body work more efficiently at fighting off disease and stress while working at repairing tissue.

Muscles make up 50 per cent of body weight and play an important role in our metabolic health and wellness. When muscle tissue is lost, body fat increases. This changes the otherwise healthy balance of fats in the blood and can lead to serious conditions such as stroke and heart attack.

Furthermore, the increase in body fat alters sugar metabolism which in turn increases the risk of obesity and diabetes. Diabetes, weight gain, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol are all complicated by elevated insulin levels. Proper exercise can help drop insulin levels back to their healthy state.

Weak, flabby muscles cannot help the heart push oxygen and nutrient rich blood around the body which is necessary for healthy cells. When your cells, tissues, and organs don’t receive the required oxygen and nutrients, they suffer.

Even the brain suffers and, since your brain is the main processing unit for the body (just like the hard drive on your computer), you are opening the door to a “virus” attack (again, just like on your computer). As well as your physical health, your emotional and mental health also suffer. Your moods, anxiety, and stress levels rise while your mental stability weakens. Your happiness and satisfaction with life are severely compromised.

When you consider the rates of serious life-threatening diseases such as cancer, which now affect one in three of us, are predicated to affect one in every two of us in the coming years, doing all we can to protect ourselves from preventable disease is a wise thing to do.

Global health has been on the decline since World War II despite billions of dollars being spent on “sickness” care. We each need to take responsibility for our own wellness and proper exercise is at the very top of the list.

The bottom line is, the body cannot stay healthy without constant vigorous activity because it is in our genetic blueprint. The body was made to move. You’ll get a massive reduction in disease risk from one simple lifestyle strategy that amounts to a grand total of two to three hours a week dedicated to maintaining your physique.

That’s a powerfully fair exchange of energy and a simple formula for creating a strong immune system and stellar health, wouldn’t you say?

Carolyn Hansen is co-owner of Anytime Fitness