10 reasons why you should lift weights

Why lift weights? What does it achieve? This is not only the subject of the next few lines.

This is what you need to know

• Lifting weights helps you overcome your genetic limitations. Contrary to the traditional view of non-exercisers, a great butt does not form a random arrangement of fat. It's made up of muscle.
• When you exercise, eating becomes an emotionally satisfying activity for you because you are eating for a purpose. There are no mental issues that iron won't help you with.
• Training makes scared women into confident badasses. When you start lifting weights, you're less and less afraid of things.

1 - You can give your parents the middle finger

Lifting weights is great because it helps you overcome your genetic limitations. It doesn't matter if your father was a midget in the circus and your mother was Ludmilla, the juggling beggar. You can always transform your body through exercise.

Do you have narrow shoulders? Skinny arms? Maybe you have a chest so sunken that emphysema patients look sturdy in comparison, or legs like a water duck.

None of that matters, because with dumbbells you can make fantastic, functional muscles out of all of it.

Of course, some people are genetically loaded with a more difficult task than others. And some simply will never make it into the extras of the latest gladiator movie. But it doesn't matter. With a little work, anyone can look good naked.

2 - Lifting weights on women shapes irresistible butts

Forget Helen of Troy. The face that took a thousand ships out of the water? Have you seen some of the asses coming out of gyms today? Some of them could launch an aircraft carrier with a parade.

Contrary to the traditional view of non-exercisers, a great butt is not made up of a random arrangement of fat, it's about muscle. Muscles are to the butt as a truss is to the roof. They hold all of its majestic shape.

It's not rocket science either. The more work you give your butt, the rounder and prettier it gets. Simply add exercises like squats, deadlifts, thrusts, kettlebell swings, and weight pulls to your workout.

Don't worry too much about overtraining because we're talking about basically the strongest muscles on your body. They can take anything.

3 - Lifting weights will change your relationship with food

You must feel sorry for normal people. For them, food is just a pleasure.

Their social activity is mostly about eating or drinking. Lunch and dinner is not a biological need for them, but an excuse for an orgy like in ancient Rome. All that's missing is sex and vomiting. They just eat with friends. All those parties, and even funerals. All just reasons to get stuffed. And the kind of food? Doesn't matter to them. It's all like cotton candy. A rush of flavor, and then a minute later, nothing.

Once you start exercising, this changes. Food becomes an emotionally satisfying activity for you because you're eating for a purpose. You start to think almost like an Indian. What you eat becomes part of you. And hopefully it will become muscle.

You begin to distinguish between types of protein, carbohydrate and fat. You start to get a sense of the quantity and frequency of food you need. You will enjoy food more than other people who eat purely for pleasure.

4 - Demons are afraid of iron

Something bad is bound to happen in everyone's life. It could be a death in the family, unrequited love, or even financial difficulties. No one is immune. Some take it heroically, knowing that time will cure all, and even luck is unavoidable. They seek help in religion, therapy, or the supportive arms of good friends.

Others choose more destructive methods of grieving like drugs, alcohol or any other harm to their own bodies. In this way, their demons can hold on to them forever. The gym is the best therapy. Pushing a weight so heavy it brings tears to your eyes is guaranteed to cure you.

Who knows if it's chemical, psychological or spiritual. It will rid you of your demons.

Of course, they'll probably come back at night, but you'll get up the next day and go to the gym to exorcise them again. Eventually, they'll find another home.

5 - Well, then say hello

Lifting weights will improve your health. You'll have less fat, better blood counts, wider blood vessels and your heart will look like it was made by a German car company.

Cancer and diabetes will watch out for you. Vitality will get to the point where you'll be able to make love to two women at the same time and dig a fence post hole in the process. Roughly.

6 - Lifting weights will make your life easier

To people like Jim Wendler, Dave Tate and Amir Sapit, the world must feel like it's made of paper. "Sorry, Mom, I accidentally ripped the door off Dad's safe when I went to get the fruko."

Most of us will never get that kind of hulking strength, but we're still very useful for moving lifting and unscrewing things.

Just ask anyone with a wife at home who goes to the gym. Need to move a sofa or put up a truss? You don't have to wait until your neighbor gets home from church. Your wife will grab the beam, throw it over her head and hand it to you.

Sometimes strength can save your life. I'm sure you can think of a few situations where the ability to break down a door, remove a heavy object, or grab and immobilize someone can be quite useful.

The real magic, however, is the mental strength that the gym gives you. It takes real willpower to go to the gym several times a week and willingly inflict pain on yourself.

But unlike tickets, this power is transferable. It can help you overcome pretty much anything life throws at you.

7 - Lifting weights delays retirement

In the old days, you were past it at 45 or 50 - you were frail, with blotchy skin, in short, you looked moldy. Your kids used to hide you in the garage when their friends came over.

Lifting weights, however, is the true fountain of youth. At forty or fifty, you'll be as strong as you were twenty years earlier. Not as fast and flexible, of course, but the strength doesn't go away so quickly.

As far as self-defense goes, you'll defend yourself as well as you did when you were 25. Only you'll leave more scratches on your attacker's face because your finger joints will be a little sharper.

For the first time in history, we're seeing the phenomenon of old guys having the same build as young guys. Same muscle hardness, volume and often definition. And it's all due to the dumbbells.

Of course, you can't do anything about your face in old age, and you have to shave your back a little more often. You can't have it all.

8 - Lifting weights gives you satisfaction every day

In past millennia, people had slightly different concerns than we do. First they hunted, then they fended off raids from neighboring tribes, in short, they tried to survive. That gets pretty tiring.

They didn't care about financial stability or if anyone in the world loved them. Life was simple and satisfying.

You can get some of that simplicity back with dumbbells. We need battles and challenges to get us back to nature and a primitive way of life. Lifting weights allows us to act like savages again. There's only one better feeling than lifting weights. And that's when you've already lifted the weight. That feeling of satisfaction simply stays with you.

9 - Lifting weights makes scared women confident badasses

I've never met a woman in the gym who was humble or shy. Maybe they started out that way, but once they were seduced by Mr. Iron, they gradually grew in confidence.

Their faces no longer contort when they look in the mirror. They no longer feel the need to turn off the light in their bedroom. Instead, it's as if they're saying, "Just look at me. You don't often see something so sexy."

And if they still don't like something about their body, they work on it instead of crying into their pillow and bitching about the unfairness of the universe.

This confidence carries over into other areas. I don't have any statistics on this, but I'm pretty sure that women who exercise have better jobs, earn more, and don't have to worry about being harassed because they can take care of themselves.

10 - You worry less and less about things

You may have been afraid before. When you were walking down a dark street and two or three guys were walking towards you, you might have looked at the ground and crossed to the other side. Like any normal person, you were afraid of criminals and evil mothers.

Then you started lifting weights. You started to get strong. And even though you realize that muscle doesn't always win fights, you're less and less afraid of things. Nowadays, from time to time, you even hope for a confrontation. You wouldn't admit it to normal people, of course, but you're among friends here. Aren't you at least a little disappointed when a guy in a small shopping bag doesn't blow your parking space? Don't you ever feel like leaving the door open for one of those uninvited visitors?

Of course, looking for trouble isn't smart, but I understand. The world is nasty and mean, and you don't make a beater out of yourself at the gym for nothing.

Actually, it's okay. It's better than being scared. But use reason, and don't act on instinct unless it's completely unavoidable. The world is also full of lawyers, and you should definitely be afraid of them.

Source: www.t-nation.com
By Terrence Christian "TC" Luoma
Translated by Jaromír Uhlíř (Cha Cha)
Original Article Title: 10 Great Things About Lifting Weights