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It's a simple fact that Turbulence Training has you lifting weights. But do you know why? There are several reasons, actually. The first reason turbulence training has you lifting weights is to build muscle. See, you can't build muscle any other way than to lift weights. The functional purpose of muscle is to produce force. It does this by contracting. And the bigger a muscle is, the more muscle fiber it has to contact, and the harder it can contract. The harder it can contract, the more force it produces. The more force it produces, the stronger you are. For all intents purposes, the bigger a muscle is, the stronger it is. Why do we want strong muscles? The reasons are almost limitless. Of course we want to have a strong body. Training to have strong muscles will not only make the muscles themselves stronger. They'll make the tendons and ligaments stronger, which gives you stronger joints. It also leads to stronger bones. There is also evidence that it can make your internal organs stronger as well. The thing this does is not make you only stronger, but much healthier as well. You are much more resistant to injury, be it strains, sprains, bone breaks, torn ligaments, or the like. You are also much healthier in the long-term, making yourself much more resistant to more debilitating types of illnesses later on in life, such as osteoporosis and arthritis. Having stronger internal organs means you're less likely to have problems with your digestive system, and your cardiovascular and cardio-respiratory systems will be in much better shape as you age. Then there are the basic benefits of just being strong. Everyday activities (helping a friend move a couch, playing a recreational game of baseball, carrying in the groceries) are much easier and fun to do. If you should ever be put under a situation of duress (a physical altercation or get into an accident), having excess strength at your disposal is always a good thing. There are also many psychological benefits that come from being strong. I've spent a lot of time in my life working out and making myself strong. I've been at that point that I can walk into almost any room, and know before I even walk in that I'm going to be the strongest guy in the room. There is something very invigorating about that. It's not being egotistical - it's just confidence. It will show in how you carry yourself, interact with strangers, mingle with the opposite sex, and will even translate over into the quality of your work. Your self-confidence will really go through the roof. I know that much of this sounds like self-help garbage, or the kind of thing you were told in a high school health class about how to feel good about yourself, but it's all perfectly true. However, there are many other factors that make building muscle beneficial. One major thing that many don't realize is how building extra muscle can have a drastic effect on your daily caloric needs. You know that your body burns calories doing certain activities. That is what prompted much of the discussion in another article. But, did you know that your body also burns calories at rest? (Yeah, you probably did.) Your body requires a certain number of calories just to maintain itself in its current form. This is for stuff like breathing, digestion, pumping blood through your body, muscle repair, and more. That is what is meant when people refer to 'daily caloric need'. This is the number of calories on a daily basis your body would burn up to maintain itself in it's current condition. Or in other words, at its current composition (how much muscle and how much fat you have on your frame). Here's the interesting part though - you know muscle is more dense than fat. That's why one pound of muscle and one pound of fat both weigh the same (duh - one pound), but the muscle is much smaller, volume-wise than the fat is. But, did you know that muscle also take a lot more calories to maintain while resting? I don't mean while working out or running or lifting weights or whatever. I mean, if you were to just sit there on the couch for 8 hours watching TV, it would take your body more calories to maintain that one pound of muscle than it would that one pound of fat. Knowing this is huge because you now know that if you can build muscle, lose some fat, and keep your bodyweight the same, you can actually lose more weight and never even have to change what you eat. That means that at your current height and weight, let's say you were at 18% bodyfat. If you could add some muscle to your frame, but keep your bodyweight the same, and drop your bodyfat to say 14%, the number of calories it would take to just maintain your current bodyweight (which remember, has remain unchanged) would actually GO UP. For more turbulence training information then check out Turbulence Training #1.
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