1 – Weight Training is the Best Way to Maintain Your Muscle in a Calorie Deficit
If you’re reducing your calorie intake, you run the risk of losing lean muscle mass along with fat. Without weight training your body grabs a large portion of its energy by cannibalizing the muscle you’ve worked so hard to keep! Cardio and diet alone are not enough to protect you from muscle takeover … strength training is a MUST!
2 – Weight Training Burns Calories and Increases Fat Loss
Strength training also contributes to your total daily energy expenditure while building muscle at the same time. Cardio isn’t the only calorie burner!
3 – Weight Training Increases Your Metabolism
Strength training creates microtrauma to the muscle fibers, which must be repaired during your recovery period between workouts. This process is metabolically costly because it takes a lot of energy to repair damaged muscle and synthesize new lean tissue. Research has also documented that weight training can actually stimulate a greater post-exercise metabolism-boosting effect than cardio.
4 – Weight Training Improves Your Health
Physicians, public health officials and exercise organizations now recommend strength training and not just cardio exercise for heart health, improved blood cholesterol profiles, strengthened bone density, increased insulin sensitivity and other health benefits.
5 – Weight Training is the Chisel You Use to Sculpt and Shape Your Body
With diet alone, you may only end up a smaller version of your old self. With strength training, you can chisel away unwanted fat and add muscle exactly where you want it, in the exact amount you want. Your body is a work of art always in progress and strength training is your tool.
6 – Weight Training Helps Reverse the Aging Process
Who doesn’t want to stay looking young? People who don’t maintain their lean body mass through strength training will lose up to 40% of their muscle by age 65. Many accept this deterioration as a part of life, most sedentary people experience accelerated pathological aging, not normal aging. When it comes to muscle the old saying “use it or lose it” is literally true! Strength training is as close to the fountain of youth as you will ever come!
I believe there are 3 pillars that make up a successful fitness program: Diet, Cardio Exercise and STRENGTH TRAINING! You must have all 3 to succeed not just at weight loss, but at the game of life!
