Weight training offers a powerful tool to women seeking to lose weight. According to their e-book "X-Treme Lean" authors Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman, weight training actually burns fat more effectively than cardiovascular training. In addition, it offers many health, anti-aging and weight loss benefits. The key is to start light and increase the weights gradually for long-term success.
Benefits
Weight training burns fat while you do it, but it also increases your metabolic rate for up to 48 hours, according to David Zinczenko's 2004 book "The Abs Diet." Lifting weights also builds metabolically active muscle, which means that your body will burn more calories even at rest. Moreover, weight training increases the body's production of important hormones like HGH, or human growth hormone, and testosterone, which act as potent fat burners in the body, according to "X-Treme Lean."
Misconceptions
Women often fear that they will look "bulky" if they work out with weights. According to "X-Treme Lean," women do not produce enough of the male hormone testosterone to build a lot of muscle. Their bodies produce more growth hormone to help repair damaged muscle and burn fat, according to Mackie Shilstone's 2005 book "The Fat Burning Bible." Another major misconception insists that once you gain lean muscle it will turn into fat if you stop training. Muscle can atrophy due to disuse, but it will not "turn into" fat unless you significantly change your diet to cause muscle loss and fat storage at the same time.
Basics
Beginner programs recommend one to three sets each of the most basic compound exercises, such as leg presses, squats, pull-ups, bench presses and bar curls. You can perform anywhere between three to 25 repetitions on any exercise. The fewer reps you do the more strength-oriented your work out becomes. The more repetitions you do, the more aerobic or endurance-oriented the workout. Warming up is very important and can take the form of a walk on the treadmill or a few lighter sets of any exercise, prior to more challenging work.
Types
Circuit training, a form of weight training, can increase fat burning. To do circuits you perform several exercises in quick succession with very little rest between them. These circuits can be repeated several times with a minute or two of rest in-between. Another way to train with weights is the full body workout, which works each muscle group with a few exercises, for one to three sets. "The Abs Diet" recommends full body workouts every other day to elevate metabolism all week long. You can also separate the muscle groups into different days, known as split training. An example of a popular five-day split looks like this: Monday--arms, Tuesday--shoulders, Wednesday--legs, Thursday--chest and Friday--back.
Advanced Tips
Once you master the basics of weight training, you can add some more advanced techniques to really accelerate your metabolism. Negative-accentuated sets, for example, can increase metabolic rate for up to 72 hours according to "X-Treme Lean." Do these by lowering the weight very slowly, over six seconds, and then lifting the weight in one to two seconds. Drop-sets add, another advanced technique, extend sets and force the body to produce more fat burning growth hormone, according to authors Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman. To do drop-sets, perform one set to exhaustion, then immediately "drop" or decrease the weight and do another set to exhaustion.
References
- "X-Treme Lean"; Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman; 2006
- "The Abs Diet;" David Zinczenko; 2004
- "The Fat-Burning Bible"; Mackie Shilstone; 2005
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