• Keeping Your Metabolism Up
• Reduced Injury
• Building that Shapely Body Everyone Desires

Boost that Metabolism

Everyone has an individual metabolic rate. “Basal metabolic rate” refers to the energy used by our body at rest to maintain normal body functions. Every year there is on average one-half pound of muscle loss after age 25. This loss in muscle produces a one-half percent reduction in Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) every year. A reduction in BMR means that our bodies are less able to use the food we consume as energy thus more gets stored as body fat if we don’t reduce our eating as well.

Our muscles have high-energy requirements. Even when we are sleeping, our muscles use more than 25 percent of our energy (calories). An increase in muscle tissue causes an increase in metabolic rate, and a decrease in muscle tissue causes a decrease in metabolic rate. The most effective means to maintain or even increase muscle tissue is to do resistance training.

Reduce Injury

Our muscles also function as shock absorbers and serve as important balancing agents throughout our body. Well-conditioned muscles help to lessen the repetitive landing forces in weight-bearing activities such as jogging or playing basketball.  Well-balanced muscles reduce the risk of injuries that result when a muscle is weaker than its opposing muscle group. For example, jogging places more stress on the hamstrings and calves than it does on the quadriceps, creating a muscle imbalance that often leads to knee injuries. So it is very important that runners be on a good strength-training program that includes training the quadriceps as well as the hamstrings and calves. Additionally just moving around in daily activities can pose a threat if a person is not strong enough to perform the movement, from picking up a box to stepping out of the shower.

Free Weights and the Olympic Lifts Are The Biggest Bang For Your Buck

Using Olympic exercises and free weights in your resistance training creates tremendous physique development. Just a few of the advantages derived from Olympic lifts and free weights are coordination, balance, concentration, flexibility, speed development, and most importantly, they are FUN! Doing workouts in a group atmosphere with a trainer both reduces cost and improves the benefits since you are doing the movements under a trained eye. The group atmosphere also makes it fun, similar to a spinning class or group game.

What if I don’t want to get Bulky?

Don’t worry about looking like a football lineman. Lifting weights will build muscle but the “bulky look” that most women fear will only happen to men and it takes years of heavy lifting and hard eating to gain the bulk you see on professional athletes. Instead what will happen with resistance exercise is a “shaping” of the body that creates the curves and figure most people want. Think of those volleyball players or swimmers. Each with shapely bodies that are desirable. That is what weight training will do to women.

What if I want the big muscles?

Weight training is the only way to build large muscles, but you also have to eat A LOT consistently (so see a nutritionist to help with that) AND you must make sure that most of your weight training is centered around big weights (with proper form). Both take time and consistency to develop, but if done correctly can dramatically change your physique.

Now It Is Your Turn!!

Why do you lift weights?