Good Things Come to Those Who 'Weight'

Ladies and Gentlemen: Resistance training burns fat more efficiently and helps you burn more calories than cardiovascular training.

Please accept my apology. I realize that I just rocked most of your worlds. I understand that I have just stomped on most of your workouts for the past few weeks (months? years?). I am aware that I am making you question why you have spent so many hours of your life walking on that treadmill with a 5 degree incline.

I apologize. However, there is a purpose to my bold statement.

IMPORTANT: DO NOT STOP YOUR CARDIOVASCULAR TRAINING!

The purpose of the aforementioned was not to discourage you from performing cardio training. Rather, it was to point out that the lack of resistance (weight) training can be SEVERELY limiting the amount of fat-burning progress that you could be making.

The truth is that, while cardio training does help you burn a tremendous number of calories, so does resistance training. In fact, resistance training produces the following benefits:

- Increased Muscle Mass - Muscle tissue is partly responsible for the number of calories burned at rest (the basal metabolic rate, or BMR). As muscle percentage increases, BMR increases, making it easier to maintain a healthy body weight.

***DON'T FREAK OUT LADIES! The term, "muscle mass" has nothing to do with overall size. You're not going to look like a bodybuilder. Your muscle mass refers to the percentage of your body composition that is muscle, as opposed to fat or water. Wouldn't you rather have less of those???***

- Reduced Body Fat - Resistance training can increase fat-free mass and reduce body fat by 1% - 9%. The higher your lean muscle percentage, obviously, the lower the percentage of fat in your body (as one goes up, the other must go down - you can't be made up of more than 100%!).

- Increases in Strength - Up to 40%! Untrained participants in more than 100 studies showed strength increases of around 40% (20% in moderately trained, 10% in advanced and 2% in elite athletes)

Simply put, while cardiovascular training has significant health benefits, true fat loss will come from an integrated resistance training program. If one's metabolic rate (the ability to burn fat and calories) increases with the amount of lean muscle tissue they possess and resistance training leads to an increase in said lean muscle tissue, resistance training is the way to go!

Let's break this down one more time, SAT style!

IF...

Increased Lean Muscle Tissue (and Lower Fat) = Higher Metabolism

AND...

Resistance Training = Increased Lean Muscle Tissue

THEN...

Resistance Training = Higher Metabolism

There will be a quiz on Monday!