Seven Ways Gaining Muscle Benefits Your Health

Not everybody has the same reaction to noticing a new muscle pop up on their body. Some love it: “Great, I’m getting jacked!” Some are discouraged: “Oh no, I’m getting bulky.” But everyone should know that building muscle has its benefits, both beyond looks and in spite of looks. Here are seven ways your newfound muscle is a big plus, both for your health and your fitness goals.

Strength and muscle size go together

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.

And, yes, size and strength are linked. We’ve all met people who are stronger than they look, and this has led to a myth that there are different “kinds” of muscle or strength, as if bodybuilders’ muscles are full of water or fat instead of contractile tissue. (I’m not sure exactly where this myth comes from, but it’s absolutely not true. Muscle is muscle.) Think of it this way: The bigger the muscle, the harder it can contract. But what you do with that muscle is a matter of skill. Gymnasts are strong, but not every strong person can do a backflip. Boxers are strong, but not every strong person will be able to deliver a knockout punch.

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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

Muscle’s effect on our calorie burn is one of the most frequently-cited benefits of gaining muscle mass, and honestly, I think it’s one of the least important. But let’s dive in, because I know you’re wondering about it.

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.

Every pound of muscle you gain will burn an extra 10 or so calories at rest each day—so if you gain 10 pounds of muscle over the course of a few years’ strength training, you’re burning an extra 100 calories each day. This may not make a huge contribution to your daily calorie burn, but it’s something. What’s less appreciated is that the more muscle you have, the more likely you are to take on harder workouts, thus burning even more calories.

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.

Muscle benefits your health even if you don’t lose weight

Losing weight is often said to benefit our health, especially for people who have diabetes, other health conditions, and/or a high BMI. Losing weight can be tough, but gaining muscle can help some of those same health outcomes whether you end up losing weight or not.

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

It’s dangerous to be weak and frail as you age. An extreme loss of muscle mass is called sarcopenia, and it’s a known factor in all kinds of things you want to avoid. The less muscle mass you have, the greater your risk of falls, fractures, being unable to live independently, and generally poorer health. Older adults with less muscle are more likely to die when they have conditions like kidney disease and heart failure, and they may have a harder time withstanding treatments like chemotherapy.

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 ke