Strength training is an exercise category that includes weightlifting, calisthenics or body-weight exercises and resistance band training. All of these exercises help you improve your health by increasing the size or mass of your muscles. When you have sufficient muscle mass, you increase your ability to lose or control your weight.
Muscle Basics
Compared to other types of tissue in your body, muscle tissue--which is frequently active throughout your day--has relatively high energy needs. To provide this energy, your body must burn calories, which you take in when you consume the various substances in your daily diet. When you regularly perform a strength training routine and increase your body's muscle mass, you increase the amount of energy your body must devote to maintaining normal muscle function. In turn, this increased energy need results in an increased ability to burn through calories.
Activity and Weight Loss
When you consume more calories than you need, you habitually store your excess intake in fat cells located throughout your body. If you don't increase your level of physical activity, fat will continue to accumulate on your body as long as you eat and drink more than necessary for basic health. However, when you increase your activity levels, your body draws on your fat reserves to meet your increasing energy requirements. If you reduce or limit your calorie intake, fat burning associated with your increased physical demands can lead to a depletion of your fat reserves and noticeable weight loss.
Special Benefits
Ongoing strength training is especially beneficial for weight loss because it permanently boosts or maintains your body's supply of calorie-burning muscle cells. What's more, the calorie-burning actions of your muscles continue after you finish exercising, effectively giving you a means of losing weight for 24 hours and keeping it off. When you exercise your major muscle groups--such as those found in your legs, torso and arms--you also experience an increased degree of calorie burning immediately following your strength training routine.
Considerations
In addition to helping you lose or maintain weight, strength training exercises help you improve the strength and health of bones throughout your body, decrease perceived body fatigue, improve mental clarity, reduce risks to your joint health and deal with the effects of chronic disease. Typically, you need to perform your strength training routine at least twice a week to lose weight and gain these additional benefits from your activity. Ask your doctor for approval before you begin a new routine and consider consulting a certified personal trainer for instructions on performing specific exercises.
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