Aside from wanting to look like I spent all those hours in the gym (aka have physical proof that I don’t just talk about it – I AM about it), I prefer resistance training for a ton of other reasons. Weightlifting increases the size and strength of our muscles, certainly, but it also improves our balance, stability, agility, confidence, self-efficacy (the belief in our abilities to complete a specific task), and has an anti-aging effect.

Free weights give us a more comprehensive training effect: we recruit not just the muscle we’re targeting (e.g., not just our chest when we bench press), but also the stabilization muscles involved in the joint structure. We’re holding a free-floating (heavy) weight, which requires our joints to be stable in order to bear the load without dropping it on our faces (e.g., our shoulders, triceps, lats, traps, and rhomboids, plus their associated connective tissues, are active when we bench press, so that we can lower the bar to our chest before pressing it back up). Using more muscles strengthens the surrounding connective tissues (our joints are able to bear greater pressure in everyday life = less likelihood of injury) and burns more calories (because more muscles are working).