Speeding Up Your Metabolism with Resist. Training
Speeding Up Your Metabolism with Resist. Training |
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I know I harp on about this but it's a real annoyance to me; why do so many people think that to lose body fat they must spend countless hours on the step machine, treadmill, or bicycle? I see this every morning at my gym, people spending an hour doing Cardio-vascular and then perform a few rushed sets of bicep curls and abdominal crunches at the end of the session.
If you are one of these uneducated people, then you have taken the right step in joining this website. Now it's time to update your training regime by using the best information based on scientific research. Before we get to this, we need to define some basic terminology related to why Resistance Exercise helps build muscle while reducing fat.
The scientific term for weight is mass. The term body composition refers to dividing the body's mass into fat-free mass (FFM), fat mass (FM), and lean body mass (LBM). FFM consists of the portion of muscle, bone, and organ weight that contains no fat. FM is total body fat, which includes essential fat and storage fat. It is impossible to reach a 100% FFM as the body requires essential fat to maintain normal physiological functions. It is found inside organs, bones, and nerves, and on women also in the breasts and around the reproductive organs. Even competitive Bodybuilders compete with around 4-5% body fat and are therefore in a very weakened state that is unsustainable.
Some fat storage is necessary to protect the internal organs from trauma and to provide the body with reserve fuel. Elite athletes who play contact sports such as Rugby are not advised to go below 10% as the body becomes too weak and the lack of protection makes them more prone to injury. The type of fat that most of us are in a constant battle with is made up of unburned calories. A person's lean body mass is the amount of FFM and some FM that is essential for life.
When body composition measurements are taken, the results tell you your percentages of FM and LBM. When you decrease FM and increase LBM, your body composition improves favourably, and the body takes on a harder and more muscular appearance with less fat. For those of you who use the scales at your way of measuring success, think again. Muscle is denser than fat, so when you gain muscle and lose fat you end up with a net zero equation.
This may not be what you want to be reading on the scales but how you look in the mirror and on bodyfat scores is a way more specific indicator of your success.People who are overweight often claim that their body has a slow metabolism and that that's why they can't lose weight. They are wrong and the studies have shown that the difference in metabolism is minute in comparison to overall calories burnt. The real reason they are gaining weight is that they are not active enough and blame everything else other than their failure to stop eating junk and begin and adhere to, a structured nutrition and training programme.
Fat is biologically inactive tissue. In other words, it doesn't do anything except keep us warm and provide a back-up fuel source at times when needed. Muscle, on the other hand, is constantly at working, even when we are asleep our body’s requires energy (calories) to sustain us physiologically. This is known as our Basal Metabolic Rate and is the minimum amount of energy required to sustain us physiologically when at rest.The resting metabolic rate (RMR) includes the BMR plus the amount of energy we use when we are sleeping and waking up from sleep.
Our total body metabolism actually refers to our total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) and is a combination of the RMR, our physical activity, and the thermic effect of food (TEF). Your body actually burns calories from the food that you eat through the processes of chewing, digestion, and absorption. The body uses approximately 5 to 10 percent of the total calories of the food you ingest to process that food, and this calorie use is the TEF.
This is one of the reasons why I recommend a minimum of 6 meals today. When I am dieting I actually eat 10 meals a day which may seem strange. However these meals are smaller than the traditional 3 square meals a day’ of breakfast, lunch and supper and my metabolism is racing like a Formula 1 race car.On average our TDEE is divided up into approximately 60 to 75 percent for RMR, 10 percent for TEF, and 15 to 30 percent for physical activity.
Although a certain percentage of our TDEE is genetically programmed, we do have direct control over some areas. For example, we can increase our physical activity simply by training longer, harder, or more Resting metabolic rate (RMR) 60 to 75% days per week, and we can increase our RMR by adding more muscle to our bodies. Resistance Exercise is the best way to add more muscle to our bodies and increase our RMR.So again I ask my question "why do so many people think that to lose body fat they must spend countless hours on the step machine, treadmill, or bicycle?"
Perhaps these people are worried that they will end up fat and out of shape or that drop dead of a heart attack. Perhaps they are simply in their "comfort zone" as none of us is really fond of change and we are creatures of habit. It can't be true that the only exercise recommended for our heart and lungs health is the aerobic exercise I see everyday. Perhaps they are right and I am wrong.
Why else would there be more CV machines in the majority of gyms across the country and especially in leisure centres?The world of strength & conditioning and nutrition in particular is a science and that science is always changing. What was correct and popular advice years ago may now be scientifically refuted. The heart is a muscle and you can do a lot of different things to train it.
If you exercise at a high intensity, then your heart and lungs will be working. Think about interval training on a rower or treadmill. What is actually happening physiologically? Well, your heart rate and respiration rate increase when you are working. Then during the recovery or rest phase, your heart rate and breathing rate decreases. This process is repeated several times. So tell me, how is that different to performing a set of repetitions using resistance equipment? They are physiologically the same. Resistance Exercise is typified by periods of high-intensity activity are interspersed with periods of rest or low-intensity activity.
This type of training comes at a higher metabolic cost to the body than most CV workouts. Obviously the amount of energy expended is dependent on the amount of volume (total sets and repetitions) used and muscle group being worked. Single muscle isolation movements will not burn off as many calories as a multi-joint movement such as back squats. These basic lifts burn up a lot of calories, and if combined with appropriate nutrition decrease body fat and / or build muscle (which increases the metabolic rate even more). A final point worth noting is that on days where you use large muscle groups like the legs, chest and back, your calorific intake can be higher than when working smaller muscle groups such as biceps, calves and shoulders.
Courtesy of ProMuscleMag.com