Michele Maroldo

Weight training is an excellent way to get and stay in shape, build muscle, build strength and get an overall sense of well being. But I bet some of you are thinking that if I build muscle, I will weigh more. Muscle does weigh more than fat so my first answer would be to throw away your scale! If you are going to embark on a good weight training program, you will build muscle but there are a few key issues you must remember.

1) Weight training is a two-fold calorie burner. To build muscle you must first tear it down. This occurs in the gym or at home, where ever you are performing your weight training exercise. The building process does not happen when you are exercising it happens when you’ve completed your exercise program for the day and you are at rest. Your body begins to build that muscle that you just tore down even while you’re sleeping. So I refer to it as a two-fold calorie burner because you’re burning calories while you are actually performing the weight training exercises but you are also burning calories to rebuild the muscle while resting.

2) Another important point to remember is that your body must burn calories just to maintain the amount of muscle you’ve built. The research indicates that you burn an estimated 35 to 50 calories a day for every pound of muscle you put on. If you do the math you will find that if you put on 10 pounds of muscle you will burn approximately 350 to 500 extra calories a day. On the other hand, fat does not burn calories like muscle does and so the more muscle mass you have on your body in relation to fat, the more calories your body will burn at rest.

3) It’s unfortunate but true, the older we get the more muscle we lose and the more fat we store. We can lose one percent of our strength every year after age 25. Given this ratio we should be determined to build muscle and maintain muscle mass as we age so our bodies will continue to burn more fat and calories.

4) Most people equate burning fat and calories with doing aerobic exercise. While this statement is true we must remember that we will only be burning calories while performing the aerobic exercise and not also at rest like weight training. To maximize the amount of fat we burn while performing our weight training exercise, we can incorporate aerobic exercise with the weight training. You can do this by taking little or no rest between exercise sets and thus keeping your heart rate elevated. You can also try interval training where you perform a muscle building exercise for a set and go directly to an aerobic exercise like running in place, jumping jacks, or using a stationary bicycle for three to five minutes and then return to another muscle building exercise. One should be cautious however when performing interval training as it requires more energy, strength, and stamina than a conventional workout.

However you choose to view your weight training program just remember that you are doing something to make your body look and feel great. Any movement you make will burn calories but weight training will also continue to burn those calories while at rest. So maximize your exercise regime by adding weight training and you will be doing something great for your body both inside and out.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 14th, 2006 at 8:11 pm and is filed under weight loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.