A common exercise question for getting leaner is whether to do resistance or aerobic training? If you’re like most women, you may have spent hours performing aerobic exercise in your quest for a lean body and if you kept this up for at least 12 weeks, you probably lost some weight. The downside is the loss of muscle tissue that also occurs when you perform hours of cardiovascular activity without any resistance training.
Muscle conditioning is often shunned by women who believe they will become bulky if they lift weights, but rest assured, women, do not have enough of the male hormone, testosterone to develop large, bulky muscles. Instead, weight training helps you acquire a tighter, toned look and maintain a more youthful appearance.
Research also confirms that resistance training will increase lean muscle tissue and decrease body fat. Training with resistance not only burns a significant amount of calories while you’re training, it also transforms you into a fat-burning machine. Muscle is more metabolically active which means that you will burn more calories, simply by having it on your body! It increases your RMR/resting metabolic rate! which is the number of calories your body burns at rest.
The most effective solution for maximizing fat loss..
is to combine both cardio and resistance training during your workout. Glycogen is the body’s immediate preferred source of energy before the body begins to tap into fat reserves.
The old school thinking of doing an extra 45 minutes of steady-state on the treadmill has a place, but do you really have time to do this after training with weights for 30-40 minutes?
Combining both resistance training with a cardio effect is the best of both worlds as far as results obtained for time spent.
