Did you say “weight training and weight loss”? For to many people this is a surprising notion that contradicts everything they have ever heard about losing weight. If you are one of those people then this article is for you. So how does one do weight training and lose weight? Weight training or resistance training should be an essential part of any health and fitness regimen. However many people in their quest to burn of pounds only focus all their energy on cardio workouts which focus on only burning calories and improving cardiovascular function. Here is a simple question for you; if you had a choice to do an exercise that would only burn extra calories while you performed the exercise, or do an exercise that would cause your body to continue burning up extra calories during and after the exercise is over, which would you prefer to do?
For those of you who prefer to only do cardio exercises to lose weight, consider that you are missing out on a huge margin of metabolic rate increase via weight training. While cardiovascular exercise is a great tool to improve heart health and burn a few calories while doing it, you could be burning up the same number of calories and forcing your body to burn up more calories after each workout with weight training.
Why Does Weight Training Do This?
It’s very simple and easy to understand. When you conduct proper weight training exercises your body endures minor tears in the muscles used during the workout. In order to repair those muscles your metabolism needs to work harder and process food faster to get the proper nutrients to the damaged muscles. This usually takes about 24 to 36 hours after a good weight training session to complete. What that means is your body goes into over drive in terms of metabolism for up to a day and a half after your weight training workout. Even though your cardio session may burn up a good number of calories while doing the workout, as soon as you stop your metabolism goes back down to normal.
How To Put The Two Together?
So is there a way to put weight training and cardio together to have the desired effect of a boost in metabolism? Yes there certainly is a way to do this. Circuit training or conditioning workouts with weights or resistance exercises can burn calories and cause the minor muscle tears that require your metabolism to work in hyper drive for the next couple of days. Focus your energy on compound exercises that utilize multiple muscle groups. Exercises such as dead lift, squat, bench press and cleans are a great total body exercise and burn the most calories. You can use isolated muscle exercises as well, but always do at least 2 compound exercises in each workout to have maximum effect. Here is a sample circuit you can try:
Cleans 1 set of 15 reps: make sure the weight is light enough for you to do comfortably with proper form.
Bench Press 1 set of 15 reps: Choose a weight that is about 60 percent of your max and push through the reps.
Squats 1 set of 15 reps: Again choose a load that is about 60 percent of your max and complete all 15 reps.
Situps 1 set of 30 reps or to failure.
Pull ups 1 set to failure.
Weight Training and Fat Loss
Complete this circuit at least 3 times in a single workout. You may be a bit sore the next day but that is a good thing because your body will be going into over drive after that to repair itself and in turn will boost your metabolism for the next couple of days. This is just a sample of many variations of workouts you can do. Weight training and weight loss can work, and can be used in a body re-composition training program. It may be one of the best ways to use the cardio and strength components that every complete fitness program requires to achieve the best results.
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