When you think about the best type of workouts for weight loss, your mind might not immediately jump to strength training, but it should. While it’s definitely true that cardio workouts get your heart working harder and as a result, help your body burn calories, strength training is what’s really going to give your weight loss goals that extra boost.
Strength training helps build lean muscle
The experts say that aerobic exercise is effective at losing weight but not the best at burning fat and increasing lean muscle mass. So, when you’re losing weight strictly through cardio, it’s likely that you’ll lose muscle and fat. And, if resistance training isn’t a part of your plan, it could be slowing down your metabolism by losing lean muscle mass.
Experts say that strength training is better at building muscle or at least maintaining it than a cardio-only routine. Resistance training stimulates muscle growth, which leads to an increase in muscle mass over time. And, while aerobic exercise can also stimulate this process, this increase is not as great as it is with resistance exercises.
More muscle = a higher Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
Having more lean muscle means your body will burn more calories at rest. Having more muscle increases your everyday base metabolic rate, or BMR (AKA, how many calories your body would burn at rest).
Experts say that muscle mass is a more metabolically expensive tissue and the more muscle you have the more calories you burn throughout the day. So by building more muscle, you’re increasing your daily BMR and burning more calories at rest. This also helps to increase your calorie deficit, which is necessary for weight loss.
Adding strength training into your weight loss plan
At the end of the day, you still have to burn more calories than you take in to lose weight, and even though building muscle can help keep that up long-term, it’s still important to chip away at calories on a day-to-day basis. Adding in strength training into your daily weight loss plan will help to maintain your calorie deficit and lose fat!
Doc Tip: Following the Doctor's daily workout plan that integrates resistance training exercises using your own body weight will help you burn fat and keep it off in the long term. It’s important to include both types of training (i.e cardio and strength) in a successful weight-loss plan.
So no need to ditch the dance cardio or long treadmill workout – just don’t forget to throw some weights into your routine a few times a week, too.
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