Healthy Weightloss Program

Weightloss and Strength Training Exercise

Exercise is crucial to weightloss and your health. It's that simple. In order to lose weight, lose fat, and and get fit you need to exercise. Ideally you need to combine strength training and aerobic exercise. The benefits of strength training are positive for both men and women!

Proper strength training exercise helps you increase muscle mass without getting bulky. Muscle burns more calories than fat, so the more muscle mass you have the faster your metabolism. Aerobic exercise elevates your heart and forces you to take in more oxygen. This elevates your metabolism. The faster your metabolism, the faster your weightloss assuming that you are eating right.

STRENGTH TRAINING EXERCISE

If you haven't ever strength trained before or are seriously out of shape, start strength training using machines. You want to train your whole body using good, slow form and progressing from big muscles to small. Start with exercising the legs - the thighs and hamstrings, then the back and chest, then the biceps and triceps (the back of your arms), and finally your hips, back, and abdominals. Not all machine brands are created equal! Prefer Nautilus, Cybex, BodyMasters, and Hammer Strength machines.

You don't need special machines though to achieve your weightloss goals. You could work out at home using a barbell or a pair of dumbells. Or you could try a home gym like Bowflex or TotalGym. These are strength training machines made for the home. Thousands of people have had success using them every week. 

Many "old school" trainers prefer free weights -- barbells and dumbbells. Free weights help you recruit more muscle fibers and make you focus on slow movements with proper form. If you have already started to work out regularly, and have some experience using machines, try to incorporate free weights into your program.  Focus your free weight training on large, compound movements like squats, lunges, chest presses, pullups, deadlifts, and dips.

Regardless of whether you use machines or free weights, here are some tips:

1. STRENGTH TRAIN EXERCISE A FEW TIMES A WEEK (2-3)

Strength train two to three times a week, with at least a day of rest in between workouts. You should strength train their entire bodies each workout. Limit your workouts to 45-60 minutes.

2. CHALLENGE YOURSELF!

In order to lose fat and get fit, you have to challenge yourself. That means strength training to stress the muscles as much as possible without causing yourself injury. You may be a little sore the next day, but if you follow these guidelines you will not get injured!

Strength training exercise is based on progressive overload. You want to become stronger over time and keep challenging yourself. Here are two simple ways to acheive this:

Single set to failure
You want to do one exercise for each major muscle. And you want to be able to do each exercise 8-12 times ("8-12 reps per set"). Somewhere between the 8th and the 12th time you want to know that you couldn't do another repetition properly. When you can do 12 repetitions with good form, increase the weight a little! Rest 30 seconds to one minute in between body parts.

3x5's
Pick 3-5 exercises that cover your entire body. For example: squat, deadlift, bench press, and pull ups. Each workout do 3-5 repetitions of an exercise. Rest 3-5 minutes. Repeat so that you end up doing 3-5 sets. Do this for each exercise. What's important with 3x5's is that you are not exercising to failure. If you measure exertion on a scale of 1-10 you want to at a level 5 for each exercise. Over the weeks as you increase the weight the exertion level will go up accordingly.

If you strength train using the "single set to failure" approach you should be able to increase the amount of weight you use each workout session for each exercise. Think of increases in small amounts -- 1 to 5 pounds typically.

If you strength train using the "3x5" approach you should think of adding 5-10 pounds every week. During a given week you want to maintain the same weight for a given exercise.

After about 8-12 workouts you may not find yourself able to increase the weight anymore. This is fine. When you cannot do perform in the desired reps for an exercise you have just completed a "cycle". Reduce the weights used on the next workout and start another cycle. Pick starting weights that are more than the starting point of the previous cycle.