To achieve comprehensive physical fitness, you must train your body for strength, flexibility and cardiovascular fitness. Weight training is perhaps the most useful form of exercise because it tones your muscles, burns calories, and helps you lose fat 24 hours a day. You cannot build muscle, however, without meeting the special nutritional needs that weight training imposes on your body.
Aerobics
Aerobic exercises are movements that train large muscle groups, raise the heart rate, and are performed continuously for at least 12 minutes at a time. This category includes a wide variety of activities, from racquetball to sex. Aerobic exercise strengthens the heart and lungs. It also burns several hundred calories per hour, depending on your body weight -- it takes more calories to move a 200 lb. body than it does to move a 100 lb. body, for example.
Stretching
Stretching exercises improve flexibility, making you more agile and reducing the likelihood that you will fall and injure yourself. Performing stretching exercises prior to a workout can also help prevent muscle strains and pulls. According to MayoClininc.com, stretching improves balance and circulation, and can relieve stress. Never stretch so far that you feel pain, because this is unnecessary and can injure you. A full body stretching workout should include exercises for the calves, thighs, hips, lower back, neck and shoulders.
Weight Training
Weight training is not aerobic exercise, because you exercise in short bursts of intensity and rest frequently. Nevertheless, it will burn calories while you exercise, although not as quickly as intense aerobic exercise. Weight training builds and tones your muscles by breaking down your muscles, and thereby stimulating your body to cope by replacing damaged muscle tissue with bigger, stronger tissue. Novice weight trainers should exercise two to three times a week for up to an hour each time, and should avoid training two days in a row, according to the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
Metabolism
Your metabolic rate determines how efficiently you burn calories. If it is slow, you will burn fewer calories to perform the same activities as someone with a fast metabolic rate. Your body burns calories not only to fuel exercise, but also to operate your heart, lungs, digestive apparatus, and other bodily functions -- even thinking burns a few calories per hour. One of the few ways you can speed up your metabolic rate is by building muscle mass with weight training. The more muscle you have, the harder your body will have to work, 24 hours a day, to supply your muscle tissue with food and nutrients. This will cause you to lose fat, which will result in a healthier body composition and improved mobility.
Eating to Win
Building muscle requires the right fuel. The most important fuel for muscle building is protein. According to the National Strength and Conditioning Association, athletes need 1.5 g to 2.0 g of protein per kg of body weight per day -- about 3.3 g to 4.4 g for every pound that you weigh. If your weight training sessions are intense, keep your protein intake in the upper end of this range. If you are not overweight, add 250 to 500 calories per day to your diet. If you are overweight, add protein, but don't increase your overall calorie intake.
References
- MayoClinic.com: Stretching: Focus on Flexibility
- Cleveland Clinic: Exercise and Weight Control
- 24 Hr Fitness.co.uk: The Metabolic Rate - BMR and RMR
- National Strength and Conditioning Association: Strength Training for Muscle Building
- National Strength and Conditioning Association: Protein Needs for Athletes
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