Here are some helpful health tips from your friends at the Princeville Health Club and Spa.

5 Reasons Your Muscles Matter:

• Enhances your level of functional fitness: The higher your level of muscular fitness, the more likely you will be able to do the tasks in your life without undue fatigue or risk of injury.
  
  
• Facilitates efforts to control your weight: The amount of lean muscle mass you have helps to determine your resting metabolic rate, which in turns affects the number of calories you burn.
  
  
• Promotes bone health: Muscle training not only makes your muscles strong – it makes your bones stronger, too.
  
  
• Slows down the so-called aging process: Strength training enhances the ability of older adults to perform the daily tasks associated with independent living.
  
  
• Helps treat and prevent lower back pain: Proper strength training can help reduce the incidence and severity of lower back pain by strengthening both your abdominal and lower back muscles.

ACSM's "Health & Fitness Journal," May/June 2000.