The first part of this series I’ll cover one of the main motivators that are at the beginning of people’s minds when they pick up exercise from not doing it before. Fat loss. A common goal for many, especially with the unwelcome lockdown kilos outlasting their stay. Oftentimes we want something that will reach our goal, as quickly and painlessly as possible though, right? Let’s get into it.
Extra calories burned by… being alive?
Now to get a little science-y, we all have what we call a ‘BMR’. This is your Basal Metabolic Rate. This is basically the minimum amount of energy your body needs to survive at rest. It’s always ticking away. Anything extra we do, like walking around, doing chores or exercising, is extra calories we use that day. So whilst we can increase that extra activity we do in the day, there is very little we can do to actively change our BMR. One thing that does though, is increasing our lean muscle mass. As lean muscle mass increases, our basal metabolic rate increases.
So more calories are being burnt by doing nothing??? Sign me right up!
Getting stronger, and stronger, and stronger…
With our muscles, we can move the weights around with good intensity and get a good workout. With stronger muscles, we can move the weights around with greater intensity and get an AWESOME workout!
Progressive overload is one of your best friends with strength training and will help your workouts burn more calories and shred the body fat! There’ll be more on that on a later blog so keep an eye out for that one!
If you’re someone who uses a smartwatch/activity tracker to see how much calories they burn, there is another factor that isn’t usually calculated and often overlooked. Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption. Or EPOC for short. Basically, this is a continued state of more energy (calories) being burnt after you’re done. Strength training has been shown to have a much greater EPOC then standard cardio styles of training. This is the body replenishing its energy resources to the muscles, cooling down, and ‘balancing’ the body again. (Read here for more info!)
Fat loss is one of the benefits of our strength training, among so many others. It’ll help us get a more defined look by building up the muscles and shaping our bodies. Never forget to enjoy the process though, the journey along the way is what we experience.
Stay tuned for the next edition of the strength series, hope you enjoyed the read. Feel free to ask me any questions when you see me at the studio, I had quite a bit of fun writing this and can’t wait for more.