By Nick Hall

Why is weight training being touted as the cure for fat loss and toning, especially for women?

Previously women would shy away from weight training for fear of becoming bulky and focus on cardio training, spin classes and other forms of group training. Most of us have innocently followed the misinformation that we need to burn lots of calories during a workout to offset the food we eat.

Lifting weights however won’t result in women suddenly stacking on large amounts muscle. Women don’t have the testosterone levels required to gain large amounts of muscle. It’s hard enough for men through years of dedicated lifting to gain large amounts of muscle.

For us to improve out body composition we need to do two things, reduce body fat and increase lean muscle tissue. Weight training can assist with both. In a nutshell, here’s how:

• Approximately 60-75% of our base metabolic rate is determined by our lean muscle tissue. The more muscle, the better our resting metabolic rate performs.

• Insulin sensitivity. Insulin is a growth hormone. Insulins role is to store energy from our blood in either our muscle cells or fat cells. The more sensitive our insulin receptors are to insulin, the more energy will be stored in our muscles rather than fat.  More muscle means more insulin receptors.  This means better uptake of energy into your muscles where it can be used rather than being stored as fat.

• Carb metabolism: Think of your muscles as sponges full of sugar.  A sponge soaks up liquid.  Your muscles soak up sugar from your blood stream.  When you wring out a sponge you lose liquid just like when you use maximum effort to move a weight you expend the stored energy in the muscle.  Your muscles then need to soak up or absorb more sugar from the blood in order to be used again. This process improves your carbohydrate metabolism and maintain your blood sugar levels.
• The afterburn effect: Your metabolic rate is elevated for 24-48 hours after an intense weight training session.

You want to focus on exercises that work multiple joints such as deadlifts, squats, pushing and pulling exercises.  These exercises work large muscle groups at one time and are more efficient than working smaller muscle groups.

If you’re new to weight training, make sure you have a qualified trainer show you how to lift correctly and safely to avoid injury.  Lifting shouldn’t be easy.  The last few repetitions of each set should be difficult to complete and require max effort.  These are the repetitions that provide the most benefit.

For more information on improving your body composition, resistance training and nutrition you can contact Nick directly at info@nickhallbodytransformations.com.