“You need to be in shape to get sick”

A couple of months back I connected with a past client who told me that they had been quite sick. He stated that he was still consistently performing hard resistance exercise (before and after his illness) at least once per week. He believed it was because of his training that he was able to endure and recover from this illness surprisingly quickly. Actually what he said was “you need to be in shape to get sick“. I paused, laughed and then thought “actually, yeah, that is pretty accurate!” Let me elaborate briefly.

What my client was sharing with me was that he was more resilient to his illness due to the fact that he was in great physical shape. Makes sense right? The stronger you are, the harder you can fight and endure anything that comes your way.

Building high quality muscle tissue has far greater reaching impacts than just becoming strong and improving muscular aesthetic. Challenging resistance exercise improves cardiovascular conditioning, improves bone mineral density, improves high blood sugars, improves hormonal profiles, normalizes blood pressure and cholesterol levels, has positive implications for healthy brain function and, the list goes on.

Resistance exercise should be looked at as an investment into your health. The more muscle you have and the higher the quality of that muscle, as a result of consistent resistance exercise, the more you can do for longer and, the more you can withstand unforeseen circumstances such as sickness and injury.

Invest in your muscle = invest in your long-term health.