Strength Training For Weight Loss - a key component
Sunday, March 7th, 2010Are you aware that strength training for weight loss is a crucial strategy and also assists in keeping the weight off? The workout doesn’t have to involve big heavy weights or a major program but simply some fundamental strength training.
The most common approach to weight loss is to go on a diet which reduces calories. The underlying fundamental is that lowering calories leads to weight loss, and thia argument has some merit. To reduce weight a deficiency in calorific intake is necessary but this is only half of the full picture.
The fat layer on your body does not burn calories it is simply storage. Calories are required by our muscles sitting under the fat. Often people who are very heavy have a strong muscular system beneath the fat because this has been necessary to support all the weight that has been carried around. The normal everyday actions such as getting to work, walking, getting groceries and the like builds up the muscles and this is advantageous.
The worst thing we want to do is lose the muscle mass while we are losing fat and this is the risk if we starve ourselves to lose body fat. You will find that muscle mass will decline for the reason that there is no now need to hold up the bodyweight that it used to do. Also with the diet, there is now insufficient calorie to sustain those muscles. If you lose muscle mass then metabolism starts to slow down and any little surplus food will now be converted to fat which in counterproductive.
Strength training for weight loss is an ideal way to handle this problem. By using strength training while also losing body fat, not only will you end up with a muscular outcome, but you will achieve the end result much faster. As the body fat is eliminated the muscles will begin to show through and will have greater definition.
A lot of body fat is layed down external to our muscles, but it can also be stored internally, which gives the muscles some bulk when we carry too much fat. Intramuscular fat will be reduced during a strength training for weight loss regime. Our muscles may then actually look smaller than they were but it will now be lean muscle which will require calories to be maintained.
The loss of muscle is alot simpler than getting it back, so he regime we choose should aim to retain what we have. In fact the goal of most people is not to lose weight as such but to lose body fat, and this is what any program should be geared towards.
in order to retain the muscle mass when reducing weight we need to incorporate a strength training for weight loss regime. If a diet is undertaken that is basically a starvation type diet our body will move into starvation mode and utilise the glycogen that has been stored to obtain the required energy. This leads to the reduction in sugars and water but this is not a reduction in fat.
To recap, weight reduction is not essentially the goal, we are looking to lose fat. We need to get away from our fascination with the bathroom scales and look at objective ways to measure body fat instead.
Not many people own a set of calipers but they are not expensive and this is a worthwhile investment. These measure the fat layer at specific, and repeatable points on the body. There are charts that will show the best places to take these measurements and they are different for men and women who typically store fat in different places on their body.
In conclusion, a strength training for weight loss program will assist in the goal of reducing body fat while utilizing the muscles we already have to produce a lean body with enough muscle to burn the calories we take in each day.
For lots of helpful information on weight loss and muscle building check out the attached link:-
http://www.lose-belly-now.com/strength-training-for-weight-loss.php
Mail this post