Being strong makes us more athletic, more functional in everyday life, and may help to prevent injury, as I'll talk about shortly. So if you notice some muscle growth, that tells you you're making progress in strength.
If you train to build muscle size, you will end up increasing your strength. And if you train to build strength, chances are you will end up increasing your muscle size. That doesn’t mean you have to become huge if you don’t want to be; your diet is the main thing that determines whether you look “bulky” or not. But it's reasonable to expect at least a little bit of muscle gain anytime you're challenging your body to get stronger and fitter.
Muscle burns more calories
The more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you burn, even at rest. Muscle is a metabolically “expensive” tissue, using a lot of your food as fuel, which means that you can eat more food. Besides just being able to enjoy more food, this also improves your nutrition! The more you burn, the better you can eat. You have the calorie "budget" to fit in lots of vitamins, protein, fiber, and other useful nutrients.
I burn about 500 more calories each day now than I did years ago, when I was sedentary, and I certainly haven’t gained 50 pounds of muscle. But the more muscle you have, the more work you can do, and that snowballs. Remember, exercise is good for your health, so the more of it your body can handle, the healthier your heart and your metabolism can become.
For example, this study found that having more muscle mass is associated with lower mortality rates, lower body fat, and a lower likelihood of having diabetes. People with high BMIs and high muscle mass were, in this study, healthier than people who had similarly high BMIs but low muscle mass. So even if gaining muscle doesn’t come with reduced body fat, it’s still helping you to be healthier. The researchers also speculate that some of the health outcomes we associate with high body fat may actually have more to do with low muscle mass.
Muscle keeps us in better shape as we age
This isn’t just an issue for the grey-haired crowd: We lose 3-8% of our muscle every decade starting around age 30, if we don’t train to keep it. The rate of loss typically speeds up after age 60—but, again, people who strength train tend to hang onto their muscle. If you start strength training when you're older, you might even build more muscle than you had in your youth.
Besides sarcopenia, osteoporosis (a loss of bone mineral density) also contributes to the risk of devastating fractures and to a loss of independence, especially as we age. Muscle loss and bone density loss have been referred to as “musculoskeletal aging,” a phenomenon that is at least partially preventable with strength training.
But weight training does also improve bone density. Unless you’re great at walking or even jumping on your hands (which, I must note, requires a lot of strength and muscle), a good way to get healthy stress on the bones of your upper body is to do plenty of resistance training. That could include training with barbells, dumbbells, resistance machines, or other tools.
Strong muscles may prevent injury
Strength training gives you stronger muscles, bones, and connective tissue like tendons. In a sports context, stronger athletes seem to be more resistant to injury. And even in everyday life—let’s say a person who might slip and fall—being strong and agile makes it easier to avoid unexpected obstacles. You may also have an easier time catching yourself when you begin to fall. There’s also evidence that exercise, including strength training, is a useful tool in managing back pain, arthritis, and other conditions.
Muscle makes you better at running, yoga, and other activities
If you’re a runner, for example, strength training helps to prevent injuries (including those nagging “overuse” injuries like shin splints and achy knees). More muscle in your legs also means a better ability to run up the hills of those trails and dodge rocks and tree roots on the way down. Stronger runners tend to be better runners.
You get the idea. Rock climbing is more fun when you’ve got more upper body muscle. Cycling is more fun when you have powerful legs. Even outside the formal sports world, muscle helps you to carry mulch in your garden, to load your suitcase overhead without endangering your fellow airplane passengers, and to help a friend move without spending the next two days on the couch popping Advil. So when you notice your body gaining a little bit of muscle, just think of all the opportunities it opens for you—not just how it looks.
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