Stop Dreading Lower-Body Workouts

Good Afternoon!

There is nothing funnier to me than seeing clients’ reactions when they hear that their day’s workout is going to be a lower-body one. Their faces always hit the floor almost immediately! I can say that I used to feel the same way, so I totally understand why the negative reactions are there. Having evolved from being a clueless youth at the gym to an exercise professional with almost 10 years of experience, I can say that my own view of leg days has changed dramatically—as should yours.

While I like most lower-body lifts, I love one in particular: the deadlift. There are so many benefits of this exercise when executed properly that everyone (healthy, able-bodied people) should be utilizing some sort of deadlift into their routines.

Here are some of the benefits of deadlifting:

1. It increases fat burning. While all strength training exercises help burn fat, deadlifts activate so many muscles and stimulate so many muscle fibers that it makes them one of the best fat burning exercises you can do.

2. It promotes better posture. On top of just strengthening your legs, deadlifting also increases your core strength, affecting your posture in a positive way.

3. It is functional for real life. Unlike a bench press or barbell curl, deadlifting prepares you for rigors of real life. You need to pick stuff up on a daily basis. Being educated in deadlifting techniques will help you avoid lower back injuries from real life obstacles, such as picking up children or shoveling snow.

4. It causes improved grip strength. Your forearms are working in overdrive during a deadlift. Grip strength will improve by leaps and bounds if deadlifting is part of your normal routine. Improved grip strength will also lead to bigger upper body lifts as well.

5. It increases hormones. Doing at least 6-8 reps of deadlifts with a challenging amount of weight will increase testosterone productions, which makes muscles grow. It also improves muscle repair with growth hormone, which promotes tissue healing, bone strength, muscle growth, and fat loss.

Those are some of my favorite benefits of deadlifting. Here at NLT we program deadlifting into most, if not all, of our clients’ programs. While at first your legs may feel awfully sore the next day, it will be worth it to see your performance increase at a rapid rate. Leg days can be fun after all…

We previously featured the deadlift as an Exercise of the Week, so please follow our guidelines on the proper movement and learn all of the primary and secondary muscles used when performing a deadlift!

Let me know what you think! Bill@nextlevelnj.com

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