Why train for muscle mass?
Here’s a terrible truth. If you take away your body's fat, bones and organs, what's left is muscle mass. Muscles are the system of the body that gives you the strength to carry your body around every day, so they aren’t just a vanity thing, they are essential to your quality of life. Not only that, but having good muscular build will decrease your risk of obesity and osteoporosis, while increasing flexibility and stamina. And because muscle mass burns more calories than other tissue it helps you lose weight and keep weight off. Believe it or not, muscles also help you burn fat when you sleep!
Here’s another terrible truth. Once you reach the age of thirty, your muscles start to deteriorate, especially if you don't do aerobic workouts or lift weights. Your muscle mass can decrease by nearly half during your adult life. In fact, between the ages of fifty and seventy, the average woman loses thirty percent of her strength due to a loss of muscle mass – which is made worse by the hormonal changes of the menopause.
So to determine your overall health, it’s important to consider your percentage of body fat in proportion to muscle mass. Someone weighing 200 pounds with a body fat percentage of 25 is carrying around 50 pounds of extra fat. That same person weighing 200 pounds with 10 per cent body fat would be carrying around only 20 pounds of fat. In addition, the person with 50 pounds of fat has only 150 pounds of lean mass to carry that weight, whereas the person with 20 pounds of fat has 180 pounds of lean mass to sustain it. That factor alone will have a dramatic impact on energy level, joint stress and mobility. Thinner does not always mean healthier, either. Extremely thin people often have a lower-than-desired lean mass percentage meaning that their bodies don’t have the required muscle to carry around their bone mass.
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