Strength Training for Weight Loss: Finding the Best Strength Training Exercise for You
Strength training is an important form of exercise that relies on resistance, either from weighted equipment or your own bodyweight, to work your muscles. Also known as resistance training, it helps to build lean muscle mass and, when combined with calorie burning cardio exercise, may help to reduce body fat. Strength training for weight loss is not about exercising alone; in order to maintain overall health and fitness, you should combine a varied workout routine with a healthy diet and positive lifestyle habits.**
There are many different ways to strength train, and finding the best strength training exercise for you depends on a variety of factors, including age, physical fitness, and your individual goals. In this guide, we’ll discuss why strength training matters and explore different types of strength training exercises.
The Importance of Strength Training
Strength training is a form of anaerobic exercise. As you may remember from our guide on cardio workouts, aerobic refers to a type of exercise that elevates your heart right and breathing; to improve your muscles’ ability to extract oxygen from your blood. Muscles require oxygen to convert fat and carbohydrates into energy.
Anaerobic exercise, on the other hand, does not require oxygen at the same level. Anaerobic exercises burn carbohydrates for energy, and they involve short bursts of intense movement, such as weight lifting or high intensity interval training.
The purpose of strength training is to target different muscle groups in your body, using the resistance of weights to increase strength and build lean muscle mass. “Lean muscle” is a term commonly used by fitness enthusiasts, which refers to muscle tissue that does not contain fat. Lean body mass, which we’ll explore more in our guide on the body mass index, is the content of the body--bone, muscle, other tissue--minus fatty tissue.
When people lose weight quickly, especially if that weight loss does not involve strength training, much of the weight that is lost is muscle mass--not body fat. Strategic, regular strength training, when combined with other forms of exercise and a well-balanced diet, may help your body target fat instead of muscle, promoting the normal breakdown of fat without reducing muscle mass.
Strength training is important to promoting overall muscular health. In addition to building lean muscle mass, other potential benefits of strength training may include:
Promoting your body’s ability to burn calories, because lean muscle mass burns calories more efficiently than fatty tissue
Promoting optimal resting metabolism, or the number of calories you burn when you are not exercising
Increased resistance, strength, and recovery
Reducing the loss of muscle mass, especially in older individuals, who may lose muscle mass normally as part of the aging process
Strength Training & Weight Loss
Can you lose weight by lifting weights? On its own, strength training does provide some potential benefits for weight management. As we mentioned, the weight you lose rapidly without strength training is often weight loss that comes from the breakdown of muscle mass. Strength training builds lean muscle mass, helping the body to break down fat instead while preserving muscle.
Strength training may also help you burn calories more efficiently. While cardiovascular exercises like running or bicycling may burn more calories during a single session, strength training may gradually help improve your body’s ability to burn calories even beyond your workout. Remember, in addition to increasing your body’s resting metabolism, lean muscle burns calories more efficiently than fat. Strength training may promote sustainable, albeit minor, calorie burning.
Strength training alone may not be enough to achieve your individual weight management goals, but when combined with cardiovascular exercise and healthy eating, you may be able to build lean muscle mass and promote fat burning.
Types of Strength Training
As previously mentioned, strength training uses resistance to build muscles. Resistance is achieved by using weights, either equipment or your own bodyweight, to induce muscle contractions to burn energy and strengthen muscles.
Since strength training involves weights, it is especially important to be careful with your workout. While you should always consult your physician before beginning a new exercise regimen, you may also want to consider using a personal trainer if you are not used to lifting weights. While the point of any workout is to challenge yourself, you also want to use caution to avoid injury or overexertion.
When it comes to your actual workout, it is recommended that you exercise from 20 to 30 minutes two to four times per week. While a gym or other exercise facility may be able to offer a variety of equipment and access to trainers, strength training at home is a great alternative for people without a gym membership, or who are trying to work their exercise into a busy schedule.
Strength training should ideally target specific muscle groups--your abdominal muscles, your legs, your back, etc. A productive session may focus on that muscle group, and you should vary your routine so that you don’t work out the same muscle group two days in a row. This allows your muscles adequate time to recover. Strength training is also about repetition--multiple, repetitive movements that exercise the muscle. Some examples of strength training include:
Weight lifting
Exercise machines
Using resistance bands
Leveraging your own body weight via push ups, pull ups, planks, squats, etc.
Another important aspect of fitness as a whole is to set goals for yourself. Why are you working out, and what do you hope to achieve? Your goals should be attainable, practical, fit conveniently into your life, and gradually shift you towards a lifestyle that empowers you to become healthier and more active. To learn more about goal setting and transitioning your lifestyle, check out the TLS® Health Guide & Journal.
Dietary Supplements to Support Strength Training
TLS® has changed the way people think about managing their weight and eating healthy. But it’s more than that. TLS® goes beyond weight management to help you transform your lifestyle; it not only promotes a healthy diet, it promotes overall improvement through exercise and transforming your behavior by reinforcing good habits and fostering a positive mindset.
TLS® uses a four-pronged approach to prepare you for healthier living:
Low-Glycemic Eating: emphasizing healthy foods that support normal blood sugar, promote metabolism, and help you lose fat.
Body Composition: focusing on exercise that not only burns body fat, but preservers lean muscle mass.
Education: teaching you the most integral aspects to healthy living and empowering you with the knowledge you need to transform your lifestyle.
Science-Based Supplementation: supplementing your diet with some of the best products on the market, supporting your other efforts to eat right, support metabolism, and boost energy. The TLS® program offers various dietary supplements that can be used short-term or long-term, depending on your individual needs and goals. By choosing which of these supplements best fit your profile, you can customize the nutrients you receive. The following dietary supplements may help support you in your strength training goals.*
TLS® Thermochrome with Advantra Z may help to promote the metabolic processes of lipolysis and thermogenesis. Thermogenesis is the production of body heat generated from burning stored fat, and lipolysis is the breakdown of fats. By promoting thermogenesis, TLS® Thermochrome with Advantra Z may be able to promote the body’s burning of fat for fuel, potentially increasing energy while supporting weight management.*
TLS® Tonalin® CLA may support weight management by helping to redistribute fat to fat-burning muscle tissue, thus decreasing the amount of fat your body stores while promoting lean muscle growth. CLA refers to conjugated linolenic acid, which is thought to help improve the body’s fat-to-muscle ratio. Tonalin CLA is a combination of fatty acids that are extracted from safflower oil, the richest source of CLA.*
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product(s) is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
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