Every single movement of our body depends on our muscle strength and without it we would be unable to live. Many of us take our strength for granted and do not realize how important it is for even simple things like eating, talking and breathing. For each of us to perform our daily tasks and activities easily and get full enjoyment out of our life we need good muscle strength.

Our modern day lifestyles see many of us 'sitting' for long stints during the day, every day both at our work and at home during our leisure time. The price we pay for this inactivity is a weakening of our muscles along with our bones and a stiffening of our joints. If our muscles continue to remain unused and unchallenged with proper muscle toning exercise they will continue shrinking with each year that passes.

This siphons vital energy and our 'get-up-and-go' and makes it less fun to move vigorously so we don't. This is a nasty downward spiral that can suck our very life force from us quicker than you could imagine. With the loss of our strength many other systems and processes in our bodies start to function below par and expose us to increased risk of disease and illnesses.

This risk is unnecessary as it doesn't take very much time each week to do some special exercise that will challenge our muscles and keep them strong and healthy. This kind of exercise is called strength training and will provide many long term health benefits as well. You will get a healthy boost to your body's engine ? your metabolism ? increasing your energy levels and helping with body weight management. With the increased calorie (fuel) burning you will be able to enjoy more food without the fear of putting on weight.

Imagine how good you will feel when you can lift that heavy box or easily carry the groceries into the house. You will be able to rearrange the furniture in your living room by yourself or carry a sleeping child with ease. And don't forget along with stronger muscles you will notice a difference in how you look as well.

Firm, toned muscles help support the skeleton holding you more upright to give you a more youthful posture and will help you avoid potentially debilitating bone and joint injuries. Strong firm muscles plump out the skin as well smoothing out wrinkles and tightening sagging skin giving you the cheapest most effective beauty aid available.

It seems that as we get older we start doing less because, in our minds, we think that older people should do less. Thus, our decline is largely 'a matter of rusting out not wearing out.' We need to forget everything we have been told about getting older such as 'taking it easy' or 'slowing down' and instead do the opposite.

We need to push ourselves physically no matter how old we are. We can get stronger with strength training exercise; spend less time sitting and more time being active. We need to change and re-program our thinking so as not to conform to our culture of aging.

It is a shame that our society allows and even encourages no exercise lifestyles that people tend to adapt too as they get older. We used to believe this was the result of the aging process but now we know that we cannot blame it on the number of our years but on our inactive and sedentary lifestyles.

While our bodies will change as we age, the effects of such changes can be reduced and in some instances reversed, through a program of proper exercise set up and monitored by a fitness professional for best results.

To sum it up we as humans have evolved so that our behavior helped our ancestors survive in the harshest of conditions. Robust daily physical activity sends positive signals to every system, cell, organ and process in our body. Grow, renew, repair, heal and thrive. Being sedentary tells our deep wiring and plumbing systems to go into 'shut down mode' and decay and die.

Make sure you are sending the right messages to your body every minute of every day for a long and healthy life.