As mentioned in part 1, muscles are extremely important for
maintaining and elevating our metabolism. If we begin to
lose muscle through excessive cardio (check out part 1) We
begin to slow down our metabolic rate and hold onto bodyfat
more efficiently, the complete opposite of what we desire.
What is the goal of a fat loser?
'To burn as many calories during the workout and raise the
metabolism after your training session'.
What if we could raise our metabolism for up to 36 hours
after exercise?
Well this becomes possible when we introduce weights into
our training programme.
If we really want to speed our metabolism for an extra day
and a half and I'm guessing if you're reading this article
you do. Then we need to involve as many muscles in our
exercise or workout as we can.
This is exactly what happens when you train with free
weights and/or you train more functionally when using what
I call the 600 muscle rule.
Our body has over 600 muscles, if we can actively stimulate
as many of those muscles as possible within one exercise,
we will naturally stimulate and raise our metabolic rate.
When we talk about functionally using the exercise, we are
referring to using free weights and performing exercises on
your feet. Straight away this begins to involve our
stabilizing muscles such as our abdominals and glutes
(bum). These muscles alone once involved will have a
dramatic effect on speeding up the metabolism.
Something else we produce when performing this kind
exercise is something called EPOC (Excessive Post Oxygen
Consumption) meaning that our body has to work harder to
produce more oxygen to recover. This is where we are able
to raise the metabolism for up to 36 hours after exercise
and where weights play a vital part in fat loss.
To get the maximum effects of EPOC, we have to use weights
to make our muscles work even harder. We can turn our
everyday exercises such as the squat, lunge and step up
into a more intense exercise by adding weight that we can
do for no more than 12 repetitions.
Now this is pretty much common sense and the out come will
be more muscle meaning increased calorific expenditure and
increased metabolism. In fact for every pound of muscle,
the body will burn approximately 50 calories extra!
Unfortunately, a common problem with training this way, at
least more common for women is they begin to add a little
too much muscle, especially on the thighs. I'm not going to
go into the science of why this happens but this is where
we need a more even balance of exercise routines which you
will get in part 4. So don't panic too much.
So with a combination of strength exercise to increase lean
muscle whilst at the same time reducing the amount of
aerobic exercise and instead focusing on higher intensity
cardiovascular exercise. We already have a better idea of
personal programme design for us to achieve maximum results
for fat loss.
There is of course one more thing that will slow down the
process of too much muscle and at the same time increase
our muscle firmness more than any of the previous. But
you'll have to read part 3 for that kind of information.
----------------------------------------------------
Kevin Raison is fast becoming a sought after Personal
Trainer in the UK. Having been a senior trainer at Dax
Moy's Personal Training Studio in London. Kevin now has his
own Personal Training Studios in the midlands.
You can visit Kevin at http://www.kevinraison.co.uk
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