Build Muscle
Many people – particularly some women – are very leery about undertaking any exercise regimen that can lead to muscle building. Although the old perception was that muscle building leads to muscle bulking, and before long, gorging forearm veins and other unwanted results. This is, frankly, not the case. Provided that women aren’t supporting their workouts with specific muscle-building supplements, there is no need to be concerned; because building lean muscle won’t make them bulk up.
Still, however, the question remains: why would women (and, of course, men) who want to boost their metabolism focus on muscle building? Isn’t cardiovascular exercising the only thing that matters?
Again, the answer is: No! In addition to a healthy and responsible cardiovascular program, muscle building is an exceptionally powerful way to boost metabolism. How? Because a pound of muscle burns more calories than a pound of fat.
What does this mean? It means (and get ready to stare in awe) that if you have more muscle on your body – anywhere on your body– you will simply burn more calories as a result. You don’t even have to do anything. You’ll simply burn more calories, because muscle simply requires more of an energy investment.
Of course, as you can infer, if you build muscle and then leave it alone, over time, the muscle fibers will weaken and you’ll lose that wonderful calorie-burning factory. But that’s no problem, because all you need to do is build and maintain healthy muscle. It may sound daunting; especially if at the moment you perceive yourself to have much more fat than muscle.
Yet the important thing for you to remember is that once you start building muscle – through any kind of strength training – your body will itself start burning more calories. It has to; even while you sleep, or go to a movie, or read a book. It’s like putting your calorie burning (catabolism) program on auto-pilot. So don’t let a little (or even a lot) of extra flab, at the moment, deter you from believing that muscle building is important.
Yes, you should enjoy cardiovascular exercise too, because that’s ultimately how your body is going to burn existing fat. But muscle building plays a profoundly supportive role in that pursuit. And it’s an exponential one, too: the more fat you transform into muscle, the more calories you’ll burn simply to maintain that new muscle (and the wonderful cycle goes on and on!). Interval Training
The basic weight loss nuts and bolts behind cardiovascular exercise (or any kind of exercise, really) is, as you know, a matter of catabolism. Essentially, if you can engineer your body to require more energy, your body will comply by breaking cells down to deliver it; and that process (metabolism) burns calories. Simple, right? So based on that logic, something called interval training neatly fits in with the overall plan.
Interval training is simply a adding high-energy burning component to your exercise plan on an infrequent, or interval, basis. For example, you may be at a stage where you can jog for 20 minutes every other day, and
thus put your heart into a cardiovascular zone during this time. This, obviously, is going to help you boost your metabolism and thus burn calories/energy. Yet you can actually burn disproportionately more calories if, during that 20 minute jog, you add a 30 second or 1 minute sprint.
Why? Because during this 30 seconds or 1 minute, you give your body a bit of a jolt. Not an unhealthy jolt; remember, we’re talking about quick bursts here, not suddenly racing around the track or through the park! By giving your body an interval jolt, it automatically – and somewhat unexpectedly – has to turn things up a notch.
And to compensate for your extra energy requirements, the body will burn more calories. It’s essential for you to always keep in mind that interval training only works when it’s at intervals. This may seem like a strange thing to say (and even difficult to understand), but it’s actually very straightforward.
The metabolism-boosting benefits that you enjoy as a result of interval training are primarily due to the fact that your body, suddenly, needs to find more energy. While it was chugging along and supplying your energy needs during your cardiovascular exercising, it all of a sudden needs to go grab some more for 30 seconds or a minute; and in that period, it will boost your metabolism as if it were given a nice, healthy jolt.
As you can see, if you suddenly decided to extend your 30 second or 1 minute sprint into a 20 minute sprint, you simply wouldn’t experience all of the benefits. Yes, your body would use more energy if you extend yourself to the higher range of your aerobic training zone. But your body won’t necessarily get that joltthat only comes from interval training.
So remember: your goal with interval training is to give your body a healthy jolt where it suddenly says to itself:
