Many people are misinformed about weight training. I hear many people (mostly women) say that they don't lift weights because they just want to "BURN CALORIES" and lose weight. What they don't realize is that resistance training (aka weight training) can help both men and women get and stay lean by building muscle and RAISING metabolism.
The truth is that hours and hours of aerobic exercise won't help most people lose weight fast because their metabolism drops back to normal fairly quickly after stopping the exercise. However, if you gain muscle, your body's resting metabolism (the amount of calories you are burning while sitting there reading this), increases. The reason for this is that muscle requires a lot of calories to maintain. Studies have shown that consistent weight training raises the body's metabolism by 15%. An average woman would burn 200-300 more calories, at rest, every day!
Am I suggesting that aerobic exercise is a waste of time? No way! To get in shape and maintain it, you should be doing both aerobic and resistance training. This is why the programs at Beachbody all contain both aerobic AND resistance exercises. It doesn't matter if you are doing Turbo Jam, P90X, or Insanity, you are going to be building muscle and losing weight.
Don't be afraid of gaining muscle, ladies. On your resistance exercises, pick a weight (or resistance band) that lets you do 12-15 reps and you will be gaining lean muscle. For those that want to bulk up, do 8-10 reps.
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