In my last post I explained a bit about cardio exercise. Now let’s have a look at resistance exercise, aka strength training.

What is it?

Resistance training can be described as any activity where your muscles have to exert force on a weight. It might be pushing or pulling that weight, moving it or holding it still, but force is being used. Most people think of lifting heavy weights in the gym when strength training is mentioned, but it can take many other forms. You could be using your own body weight by doing a press-up, or using resistance bands, medicine balls or kettlebells. Even doing daily tasks like carrying heavy bags, or digging a hole in the garden with a spade can count. Other examples of strengthening exercises are yoga, pilates and even tai-chi.

Why should I do it?

For many, many reasons. Did you know that on average, a human’s peak muscle mass is aged around 30-35, then after that we naturally begin to lose muscle. It’s part of the aging process, and speeds up as we get older (How can strength training build healthier bodies as we age? | National Institute on Aging). I’m sure you’ve heard of osteoporosis, which refers to loss of bone density. But have you heard of sarcopenia? This is a medical term for loss of muscle mass, normally in older adults, which can result in weakness, fatigue, difficulty walking or climbing stairs, and other issues. Muscle loss or weakness can also result in poor posture, which in turn could lead to other biomechanical issues and often pain.

This is not inevitable though. By including strength training in your exercise regime you can counter these effects and and prevent excessive muscle loss leading to sarcopenia (you can also prevent osteoporosis as it helps strengthen bones too <insert smiley face emoji>)

Building muscle isn’t just useful to stop you falling over in your dotage though. It’s key to having a healthy body, and some argue, a healthy mind. Resistance training helps to keep you strong. It helps improve posture. There’s some suggestion it helps keep your brain sharp and boosts mood and self-esteem too. This may well be linked to the confidence built when you achieving difficult things (like lifting a heavy weight in the gym) or because you know you look good. Whatever suits you…

I see a lot of people talking about strength training to lose weight?

I was just coming to that. For many people, resistance training can also be the key to losing weight.

Allow me a moment to explain. If you imagine, very crudely, that your body is made up of fat and ‘lean body mass’ (LBM) which is everything that is not fat (so muscle, bones, organs, water etc). A person who weighs 65kg on the scale might have a lean body mass of 52kg. Which would mean that 13kg of their body weight (20%) was fat. With me so far?

Muscle tissue is more ‘metabolically active’ than fat tissue. Put very simply, this means that muscle uses more energy (calories) than fat just to exist and carry out the functions it’s there for. Now, as I’m sure you know your body uses energy (burns calories) by just existing. It needs energy to run all the systems in your body without you even thinking about them. The amount of energy (in calories) that your body needs is called your base metabolic rate (BMR). The higher the percentage of muscle in your body, the more calories you will burn just to exist, and the higher your BMR will be. Got it?

So in short, resistance training builds the amount of muscle in your body. And in so doing it increases the amount of calories your body uses just to exist. So, if my previous LBM of 52Kg needed 1500 calories* to maintain it, my new LBM of 55kg will need more than that, lets say 1600 calories* to keep me going. Now lets say for arguments sake I consume 2000 calories per day and my weight is stable. If I continue to consume the same amount of calories I have always done, or less (and that part is key to the whole thing) my body is now using more energy purely by virtue of having more muscle, and it will need to find calories from elsewhere to fuel it. And where do these come from? Your stored fat. Which will ultimately result in weight loss.

However, as a quick aside, I feel like I should highlight this while we’re on the subject…

So in the example above, I increase my LBM to 55kg through resistance training. But let’s say I step on the scales and I still weigh 65kg… now I’ve been working out and eating well and I’m pretty downhearted tbh. Nothing has happened! I weigh exactly the same! This is a waste of time! I’m going back to the couch…

This phenomenon is often why people give up their exercise programmes. I’m here to tell you that you really, really need to wait that period out.

Things have happened..! I increased my LBM by 3kg and therefore my body fat is now 10kg, or 15% of my body weight, so way lower. So I’m healthier, even though I technically weigh the same. I’m stronger. I’ve got that confidence I mentioned before because I can now deadlift my own bodyweight. I feel nicer. Plus my body is using more energy (calories) just to exist. There’s so much more to life than the scales, but if weight loss is what you’re trying to achieve, it WILL come down.

Well sounds like there’s benefits all round. How much should I do?

Government guidelines suggest you should do some sort of strengthening exercise at least twice a week. That includes things like yoga or pilates. You should ideally look to target all the major muscle groups – so chest, back, shoulders, arms, hips/pelvis, legs and your core. So basically a full body workout! That sounds like a lot, but there are numerous ways to go about this and you can get a really good workout using only a few exercises if you’re strapped for time. You also need to remember that muscles don’t tend to work in isolation – if I am doing a bench press, for example, then my I’m working my arms as well as my chest. I’m sure there are several other blog posts that I could do on agonists and antagonists and sets and supersets but we’ll not worry about that just now. For now lets just go with the fact that strength training twice a week will make a big difference to your life. If you’re not sure where to start, get in touch, I’m here to help!

 

 *Please note, these are just figures plucked out the air for illustration. There are methods of calculating EXACTLY what your BMR is which I won’t go into here.