Your Muscles > Your Health Coach

Strengthening Your Muscles - Tip No. 1


Your coach:
Maryse Simard
Kinesiologist, ÉPIC Center
Montreal Heart Institute


As a kinesiologist, I’m really happy that the 5/30 Health Challenge is proposing the “Strengthening Your Muscles” Goal PLUS. Why? Because we too often tend to forget to work on certain muscles that are important to our bodies.


The advantages

Regularly doing muscle-strengthening activities gives you numerous advantages:

  • Allows you to do daily activities easier and with more energy, like climbing stairs, working around the house, moving heavy objects, etc.
  • Makes playing sports easier and reduces the risk of injury
  • Strengthens bones and tendons, which helps to prevent osteoporosis
  • Improves posture and balance
  • Diminishes back pain
  • Slows down or avoids the gradual muscle loss related to aging, which starts around age 30 to 40
  • Improves appearance, self-esteem and general well-being


A pretty impressive list, isn’t it?


What to do

To get the maximum benefit, you need to work all the big muscle groups of your body: legs, arms, abdominals and back.


To do this, I invite you to take inspiration from the different exercise programs available in the Challenge Tools section of the 530HealthChallenge.ca site. You’ll find a variety of exercises for all fitness levels – some that require no equipment, and others that can be done with weights or an exercise band. There’s even a program with the exercise band that works perfectly at the office. Have a look!


By doing this kind of exercise 2 to 4 times a week, you’ll quickly notice some positive changes.


To learn more about the “Strengthening Your Muscles” Goal PLUS, check out our article on the subject.