|
||||||
|
|
|
| ||||
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
|
|
| ||||
|
||||||
| Strength Training Strength Training is any exercise that causes you to build lean muscle mass. This can be accomplished best with moderate weight lifting. If you are looking to lose weight, feel healthy, and look better, you absolutely need to incorporate strength training into your weekly exercise routine. Here are some reasons why: First, cardiovascular exercise is good for you - and we will be doing a good amount of cardio - but it's not the most effective way to "get lean." You will burn, on average, about 100 calories for every mile you walk or run. Since a pound equals 3500 calories, you would have to walk 35 miles to lose one pound. That's a lot of walking. Also, if you're currently obese (I was when I started) then heavy cardio exercise can be very demanding and painful to your body. Many obese people make the mistake of buying a treadmill or hitting the streets and trying to jog an hour right off the bat. This will only get you injured and sore and cause you to stop exercising. If you care about the way you look, then you should care about strength training. If you lose weight but don't build muscle, you will look thin and scrawny. To look good, you want firm, lean muscles. Ladies, don't worry about "bulking up." You can't. Most women don't have enough testosterone in their systems to build bulky muscles. Men - you can bulk up if you want to, but keep in mind you're looking at many hours a week in the gym lifting weights. I'm not talking about bulking up here. I'm talking about moderate weight lifting to strengthen and build healthy, lean musle mass. You will look good. Trust me. The real benefit of strength training is this: lean muscle mass burns more calories than fat body mass does. If you take two people who both weigh 200 pounds, however one person is made up of mostly muscle and the other is obese, the muscular person is burning far more calories while resting than the obese person is. Muscle tissue is very calorie-hungry, and this is a good thing. We're going to start out with light cardio (like a 20-minute walk, three times a week) but more importantly, we're going to start you out with light strength training. Some simple weight lifting exercises will start building lean muscle mass which will burn calories faster while you're exercising, and even while you're at rest. Now, if you don't incorporate strength training into your exercise routine, and you decide to try to lose weight, here's what happens: your body will eat your muscle tissue first. Since muscle tissue is a great source of protein, your body will consume muscle tissue first if you're not doing any strength training. So you will be losing weight, but it will be the wrong kind of weight! You'll lose muscle, not fat. A lot of people who are overweight start off a "diet plan" wrong by starving themselves and then kill themselves with hours of aerobics. What happens is all bad: your body is starving so it hangs on to stored body fat while at the same time consuming muscle tissue for fuel (since you're not strength training). So now you've lost weight, but you've lost muscle tissue. You hurt yourself with all the aerobics you're doing, or you get bored, so you stop working out. Now, you put back on the weight you lost because you're not killing yourself with aerobics any more, but since you have less muscle mass now your metabolism is now lower than it was before (which means you're burning fewer calories at rest). The result: you gain back more fat weight than you had before you started! The key to fixing this problem: strength training plus a moderate amount of cardio all with a good diet of healthy foods. More Benefits of Strength Training Still don't believe me that you should build muscle? Here are some additional benefits of lifting weights:
|
