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By Liz Applegate, Ph. D.
Check out her book:
"Bounce
Your Body Beautiful"
For years women focused on cardiovascular
exercise mostly in the form
of aerobics classes as their primary weight-loss
tool. Only recently
have they become aware that, to truly firm up and
lose weight, they
must also strength train.
Research shows that our sedentary lives cause us to
lose 1 to 2
pounds of muscle during each decade of life after
age 20. Each pound
of muscle we have left burns roughly 35 to 50
calories a day doing
“muscle maintenance” that involves breaking itself
down and building
itself back up. This means that every pound of
muscle we lose slows
our metabolism by 35 to 50 calories a day.
Yet you can reverse this metabolism slowdown. The
answer? You
guessed it—strength training.
When a muscle meets resistance, its fibers first
break down and then
build back up. When the fibers build back up, they
grow in size and
strength to face that same task without strain.
This larger size
bolsters muscle strength as well as your metabolism,
which is the
number of calories that your body burns just to exist.
Muscles burn a number of calories simply to maintain
themselves. The
larger your muscle fibers, the more calories the
muscle will burn. A
typical woman starting a strength program can add 1
to 2 pounds of
muscle, creating a permanent metabolism boost of 35
to 75 calories or
more per day.
In addition to building larger muscle fibers, a
resistance program
also increases the protein content of your muscles
so that your
connective tissue—tendons, cartilage, and
ligaments—becomes thicker
and stronger. This means that in addition to having
more strength,
you will also be preventing injuries.
Possibly most important of all, having strength is
empowering.
Being strong feels good. You feel capable. You
begin to move with
confidence and ease. Best of all, you look fabulous.
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