Changes in lifestyle that focus primarily on dietary modifications and increased physical activity can help you lose weight and lower your cholesterol levels in as little as six weeks. A study published in the June 1999 edition of the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that strength training for 45 to 50 minutes three times a week effectively lowered total cholesterol for the 24 premenopausal women in the study by 10 percent and low density lipoproteins, or LDL, known as the "bad" cholesterol, by 14 percent.
Designing Your Workout Program
The American Council on Exercise suggests that a cholesterol-lowering workout program requires a relatively high volume of exercise which burns a minimum of 1500 calories per week be performed at a moderate intensity. Use your own body weight for resistance, free weights--dumbbells, barbells and cables, resistance training machines, or a combination of the three. How frequently you train would depend on your health and fitness. General guidelines appropriate for most people allow for rapid progress with a program that incorporates two to three workouts a week that last from 20 to 45 minutes. Always be sure to warm up for five to seven minutes before exercising..
Choosing Your Exercises
Select a variety of exercises so that you work out your entire body, not just two or three muscle groups. Include exercises for all the major muscle groups, including your chest, back, shoulders, abdominals, glutes and thighs, calves, biceps and triceps. Suggested exercises for the trunk and lower body: squats, forward or reverse lunges, deadlifts, step-ups, crunches and dumbbell side bends. Examples of upper body exercises great for circuits: pull ups, triceps dips or kickbacks, dumbbell chest presses or flys, bent over rows, lateral raises or shoulder presses, and biceps curls. Start with light to moderate weights and perform just one or two sets of each exercise to avoid overdoing it, which increases your risk of muscle strains and serious injury.
Circuit Training Provides Maximum Benefits
An excellent style of weight training to maximize fat loss is circuit training. Circuits are created from six to 10 exercises for the entire body, performed one right after the other with little to no rest between each. Once a "circuit" has been completed, you would rest 90 to 120 seconds, then begin the circuit again. Performed with proper intensity, your heart rate stays elevated in the cardio training range of 130-to-140 beats per minute. Circuit training is a demanding style of training and will exhaust beginners quickly. If you are new to weight training, perform just one or two circuits, gradually increasing to three as your strength and stamina improves.
Add Cardiovascular Exercise
Extra cardiovascular exercise such as walking will also help lower your cholesterol levels. Buy a pedometer and use it to track the number of steps you walk daily. The U.S. Government fitness program "Shape Up America," recommends that we log a minimum of 10,000 steps on most days of the week instead of the 900 to 3,000 taken by most Americans.
References
- West Virginia University Healthcare--WVU study shows weight training lowers cholesterol levels in adults
- American Council on Exercise-Managing Cholesterol With Exercise
- British Journal of Sports Medicine- Effect of 14 weeks of resistance training on lipid profile and body fat percentage in premenopausal women
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