Strength-Building Resources

What most of us really want is not to lose weight, but to lose fat, and gain a sleeker and more powerful shape. 

A challenging, and often frustrating way many of us try to slim down is to endure the trials and denials of diets and push ourselves through cardio exercise.  Most often we don’t succeed on a permanent basis.  If we do succeed, we get leaner and weaker – we burn muscle as well as fat.

A more practical approach than the diet-and cardio path is to do it by building strength and developing a stronger calorie-burning machine. 

Consider these facts:

•  A kilo of muscle burns far more calories than a kilo of fat, and it burns it at rest, so with strength-building exercise, you have a double bonus: you burn calories doing the exercise, and create enough new muscle to automatically burn calories that are equivalent to hours of cardio - even when you’re not exercising.  (With cardio work, you just burn the calories during exercise, and while cardio helps keep weight off, and keeps you healthy in other important ways, you have to do an awful lot of it to lose much weight)
  

• So, the stronger you are, the more efficiently you’ll burn fat as well. “Muscle burns more calories than fat, even at rest,” says Cedric Bryant, PhD, chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise. Muscle cells contain more mitochondria – the part of cells that generate energy by turning nutrients and oxygen into fuel for the body – than fat cells do. The more mitochondria you have, the faster your metabolism and the more calories you burn.”
  

(Note:  in this article, strength training=weight training, also known as resistance training)

Statistics have shown that many high BMI (High Body Mass Index) – obese - people have a lower energy requirement, and lesser food intake than much lighter, normal BMI people, who have a lot of muscle.  The latter eat more, weigh less, and carry less fat, because they’ve developed a natural calorie-burning engine.

• Muscle takes up less space than fat – it’s denser – so you get smaller if you stay the same weight, while losing the fat and gaining the muscle through strength training.  And every kilo of muscle gained will use 600 calories per month.  Putting on a few kilos of muscle will help you lose a few kilos of fat…and keep on using extra calories.  When you improve your muscle-to-fat ratio, you start losing clothing sizes even if the scales don’t move.
  

•  Losing calories through diets is difficult. Your body stores and uses fewer calories if it senses a reduction in intake, so you don’t necessarily lose the weight you thought you’d saved by eating less.  And if you diet intensively enough to lose weight, you lose muscle too, not just fat.  And muscle is good, as we said.
  

The recommendation:

Build strength.  We don’t mean pump iron with the intensity of body builders, who typically hit their heaviest possible weights with half-a dozen repetitions, and minimal breaks.  We mean sets with weights with which you can comfortably manage a dozen or more reps.

You’ll lose more fat than you’ll gain in muscle.  That’s what counts.

Note:  Women won’t get big unless they’re taking steroids. They have a fraction of the hormones men have to do the growth job.  And most men find it hard to get big (rather than better shaped), unless they take steroids. The most intensive women weight lifters don’t really get large; their muscles just get ultra-defined.

Strength training works for older people just as well as younger people.  Tests prove it.  And the older we get, the more we need it, because muscle depletes after we reach maturity, eventually risking accidents and imposing limits on our later lives if we don’t take action.

Strength training strengthens bones, it makes you stronger (surprise!), it helps protect against diabetes by increasing the body’s utilization of glucose, and has proven to improve mental health.


How much strength training should you do?

To get real, visible benefits?  Ninety minutes a week. (At least)  Two-three sessions.  And don’t forget cardio exercise.  That’s still important.  The same amount.  (At least)  You can do them on the same occasion, for example: 10 minutes cardio warmup, 30 minutes resistance/weights/strength/10 minutes cardio to finish.

You should still have some control over what you eat and drink.  But this approach gives you more options, a more productive process (building a better fat-burning mechanism), potentially more control over managing your shape, and greater strength and better health.

Additional Reading

Dr Wayne Westcott:  How and why women don't bulk up, and his 15+ years of experience of research and teaching with women strength trainers.  See Strength Training For Women.

Dr Westcott is author of many books on exercise and health,  and is fitness research director at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, MA. He is strength training consultant for numerous national organizations, such as the American Council on Exercise, the American Senior Fitness Association, and the National Youth Sports Safety Foundation, and editorial advisor for many publications, including Prevention, Shape, and Club Industry magazines

Also from Dr Westcott:  Why Women Need Weight Training