BENEFITS OF BODY BUILDING WORKOUTS
OK Lets start at the beginning….WHY?
Here’s 12 Reasons to build Muscle
• Replace & increase muscle tissue
• Increase Metabolic Rate
• Increase energy expenditure
• Increase fat burning
• Improve functional strength
• Increase bone mineral density
• Increase energy and vitality
• Decrease joint pain and injury
• Decrease arthritis
• Decrease osteoporosis
• Decrease coronary heart disease
• Decrease diabetes
1. Every person who does not strength train is losing between ½ to 1 pound of muscle per year after the age of 20.
2. Every pound of muscle burns off between 50-100 calories per day and burns approximately 4lbs of fat per year
3. If you don’t strength train, in a decade your body will burn 250-500 calories less per day due to the loss of muscle tissue
4. This loss of muscle tissue is responsible for the 3% decrease in metabolism per decade.
5. As little as three months of body building workouts can increase your metabolism by up to 9% – that is, counteract 30 years of aging.
6. Strength training is the only way to replace lost muscle tissue and permanently increase your metabolism
7. Muscle is like the engine in a car, not only is it where petrol is burnt, but the bigger the engine the more petrol is burnt. Fat is burnt up in the muscle, therefore the more muscle you have the more fat you will burn at rest and during exercise.
8. Strength training increase your metabolism 24 hours per day – whereas cardiovascular training will only increase it for the duration of the exercise session and for only ½ – 1 hour after the exercise session.
9. Strength training is the only interaction that will stop osteoporosis and even increase bone mineral density. 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men will suffer from osteoporosis. Walking is not enough!
10. Strength training is also beneficial for arthritic patients as it increases function, joint movement and decreases pain.
11. Strength training is highly recommended even if you have coronary heart disease (high blood pressure) as the stronger you are the less effort is required to perform daily activities.
12. Strength training is recommended for all populations from the elderly all the way down to children – every Sports Medicine (Sports Medicine Australia), Paediatric and Orthopaedic Association recommends strength for children. Strength training actually increases bone and muscle strength, cartilage and ligament strength, improves posture and self-esteem, decreases obesity and osteoporosis later in life, increases sporting performance and decreases the risk of injury.
N.B. Research shows that there is no disturbance to the growth plates or the skeleton in children.
EXERCISE SUMMARY
In prehistoric days, cavemen presumably stayed strong by lifting rocks or dragging their dinner out of the jungle. The early pioneers lifted logs, hauled water from the creek and generally endured life’s hardships in much the same fashion as the early cavemen. Today, necessities of life do not control how or whether we remain fit. It is up to us to choose whether to do so and how, because the fact is exercise is an essential element of weight loss (no secret there).
Often the mere suggestion of the ‘E’ word is enough to send people into a frenzied panic. But don’t fear, you don’t have to spend restless hours sweating on a treadmill to reap results.
All it takes is approximately 30 minutes of cardiovascular activity three-to-four times a week to complement your fat controlled diet. It’s recommended you become involved with activities you genuinely enjoy so you’ll feel more inclined to persevere with the exercise. Exercise is important as it burns kilojoules and increases the metabolic rate. However, steer clear of the misconception that as soon as you begin an exercise program the weight will automatically drop.
Results take a while to show, but due to the increase in lean muscle, once your body becomes accustomed to exercise the weight will come off more quickly. The reason for this is as your lean muscle increases so does your metabolic rate, and therefore becomes more efficient in using the energy from food, rather than storing it as body fat.
Burning fat with exercise will not always be reflected on the scales, as you may also be gaining muscle which weighs more than fat as it is a lot more dense. The real results will be in your clothes size, body fat measurements, skin folds or weight and hip circumference – this is NOT a NUMBERS GAME!… in other words you can lose inches around the body and the scales can remain the same – therefore you have changed BODY COMPOSITION, Mission Accomplished! . . . increasing muscle mass and losing body fat is the premise of BUILT 4 LIFE.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF EXERCISES
Interval Training
Interval training is when you work out at a steady pace for a certain amount of time, but then include intervals of bursts of high intensity exercise. An example of a running workout is if you were to run along the street, you could run/jog at an even pace past two telegraph poles, then sprint until the next pole, then keep doing that cycle for about 20 minutes. Higher intensity training will burn more calories over a period of time.
Interval training gets your heart rate up and down. It is suited for all levels of fitness. You can do it in the gym or while you’re out and about, walking or running. The beauty of interval training is that you’ll burn body fat and you’ll get fitter.
Running
Running is fantastic for weight loss, however could be a problem if you have knee problems. You can run on the road, hard sand, soft sand, grass or cross country. All of these have different effects on your body. The road will pound your body more. Running on soft sand will work the lower parts of your legs, calves, and Achilles tendons.
Walking
Walking increases your blood flow, raises your heart rate and boosts aerobic fitness. The long strides you take when you walk up hills provide a natural stretching effect. Walking warms and works your muscles without straining them and the lower back.
Walking is one of the best activities for losing weight as it can be done over a long time at a heart rate that is comfortable, but will burn fat from your body, especially the areas that are being used: bum, legs, waist, abdomen and arms. You will lose weight far more effectively than in a one-hour high intensity step class!
Cycling
If you don’t like going outdoor you could opt for an indoor gym class such as RPM or Spinning, which are great for losing fat, however very high intensity and not for the unfit.
When cycling always use the entire saddle. Move your body forward to pedal faster, or sit in the middle for normal pace pedalling. Lean towards the rear of the seat when going up hills or slowing down to stop. Keep your back straight. Pedalling fast increases cardiovascular fitness, while pedaling slowly increases strength.
Dancing
Dancing is a great exercise. It can be from medium to high intensity. It depends how you dance to how much fat you will lose. Olympic athletes often include dance in their training to improve control, speed, agility and balance. Dance contributes to good posture and body alignment and uses gentle stretching, while increases flexibility.
Aerobics
Aerobics is the third most popular exercise in Australia. There are many types of classes so there is bound to one suited to you. But be warned, like most sports, some aerobic classes might not be good for people with certain injuries. Consult your gym instructor before you go to a class.
Swimming
Swimming is not the greatest for weight loss, but it is fantastic for toning the whole body. It is gentle and good for people with injuries. Your muscles are crucial for fat loss as fat is burned almost exclusively by your muscles. The fitter your muscles are, the more fat you will burn.
Weight Training
Lifting weights doesn’t directly help you lose fat, but gives you more lean muscle. The more lean muscle you have – the more your body will burn fat. For every kilogram of lean muscle you put on, you burn more calories.
Yoga, Tai Chi
These concentrate on limbering your body. They provide the same benefits as walking. They are not the ideal exercises to lose weight but are great for toning and stretching the areas from which you are losing weight.
Monitoring Your Progress
Although sometimes it is hard to distinguish any improvement, especially when you’re body weight remains the same, but remember muscle weighs more than fat.
Losing weight comes down to SUPPLY vs DEMAND! ‘’Be more active.
Put your remote control on top of the TV, and better yet – do crunches on your fit ball while not watching the commercials.
Park far away from the supermarket and walk in.
If you really want to lose weight you can, but it does take time and effort. There are no magic pills or remedies, supplements can assist and help your progress, but you need to put in the work.
When you know what you want to achieve find an exercise you enjoy and will help you get these results.
BUILT 4 LIFE is a LIFESTYLE, is not a Fad or Phase!
Remember the key to achieving Your Built 4 Life Body is Consistency…
Aerobics Vs Anaerobic Exercise
Ever since the ‘’jogging craze’’ of the ‘70’s, aerobic exercise has been the method of choice for those attempting to ‘’lose weight’’. Gradually, the resistance training area of most gyms and clubs is being scaled back to accommodate all manner of equipment designed to elevate the heart rate.
With the aerobic revolution in full gear, I feel compelled to ask “Why are people getting fatter and fatter?”
A quick look at Olympic Athletes speaks volumes about the effects of aerobic versus anaerobic training. Compare the physiques of 100 metre sprinters against long distance runners, such as marathoners.
Although sprinters do little or no aerobic exercise (it’s not specific to their events), they are just as lean (if not leaner) than their aerobic counterparts. They also have more attractive physiques, which is a by-product of the muscle they’ve gained from hours in the weight room doing body building workouts and short-term, intensive running.
By contrast, the marathoner’s lack of muscle gives him a ‘’flat’’ physique. His extensive and frequent forays into the aerobic zone have caused his body to lose muscle (since muscle weight more than fat, it is the body’s preferred tissue to cannibalize in the interest of lightening the load).
If you’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to lose 5 -10 kilos of unwanted fat, despite spending hours upon hours on the stair-climber, read on. Anaerobic exercise may not be politically correct, but it IS physiologically correct – if fat loss is your objective.
Since our language affects the way we think, let’s begin by revising our vocabulary for a moment. I’d like to encourage you to delete a few words from your personal dictionary.
Words like shape, contour, sculpt, and all the rest of the vague descriptions you hear on late night infomercials. These terms are irrelevant with respect to the adaptations you can expect from any form of expect from any form of exercise.
In reality, there are only two bodily tissues that you have aesthetic control over-muscle, and fat. These tissues can be affected in only two ways: You can gain, or lose. (By the way: tone simply refers to a state of partial, involuntary contraction, a result of muscular work. Even the most rotund can have muscle tone, and the thinnest people sometimes have no tone.)
So the goal is to gain muscle and lose fat (or change Body Composition). When you do so, let everyone else call you toned and sculpted.
Look, I know that for a lot of you out there have are still put off at the thought of looking like some androgynous freak, let me assure you of this unless you are some genetic freak then I think you need to allow this as the excuse for not reaching your fitness goals (which I know by this stage you have made, correct am i?). Listen to this, just a couple of kilo of added muscle can make a dramatic difference to your physique, not to mention your health and well-being. Muscle (unlike fat) needs calories to survive. The more muscle you have, the higher your Metabolism will be. Please remember Bigger muscles burn more calories than smaller ones, even during sleep!
What’s the best approach for people wishing to improve their body composition?
First, don’t eliminate your aerobic sessions, please don’t think that’s my message, I personally love my aerobic sessions, however they do not take place in a gym . . . Rollerblading is my preferred aerobic session, probably 3-4 sessions per week, It comes as a shock to me to think that I’ve been skating for over thirty years, but it’s true, this was one of the few sports my mother encouraged! But I thank her now, as It has been one of the best healing tools which has got through many an otherwise ugly day.
It’s good practice to do a handful (three to four) of 20 to 40 minute sessions a week. More than that, and your body starts to drop valuable muscle in an effort to adapt.
Second: when doing ‘’body building workouts’ Most people make one or more of the following mistakes:
1. Too many exercises: One exercise per muscle group per workout is plenty. The key is pick the right exercises, and intensity!
2. Ineffective exercises: Don’t avoid so-called “hard-core” exercises for fear of getting a result. Choose ‘Compound’ exercises (uses more than one muscle group), such as squats and their variations (fit-ball squats an excellent exercise, which I fully endorse), Bench Presses and their variations (again, the fit-ball is an excellent & safe bench, when used correctly).
3. Insufficient intensity level: High reps DO NOT ‘tone’ a muscle! For beginners, high reps are important to strengthen connective tissues, and to allow for technique mastery. But for optimum muscle building, stay in to 6 to 12 range for the majority of your workouts. If and when you get to the point where you don’t want additional muscle, just cut back on the volume and frequency of training.
4. Lack of progression and variety: If you don’t seek increases in strength, your body will stop responding. Similarly, if you train in exactly the same manner for extensive periods of time, your body will adapt to the monotony, and stop responding, no matter how good the training program is. For this reason, there is no perfect training program.
Virtually everything we do in life in anaerobic. Aerobic activity is an artificial state which the human organism is not well adapted to. For the majority of individuals, loss of function associated with aging is due to lack of strength, not aerobic capacity.
Obviously, compared to a lifestyle which was totally sedentary, aerobic exercise is quite beneficial. The people I’m trying to reach with this message are those individuals who are not competitive aerobic athletes, but who nevertheless spend between 5 and 10 hours a week in the aerobic zone, for the purpose of improving their appearance. All these countless nameless people, hear this you would greatly benefit by reducing your volume of aerobic exercise, and incorporate resistance training into your program ah!
And I can assure you, all those doing ‘’aerobic’’ classes these days lifting weights “pump’’ if you are worried that you’ll get too bulky from lifting those weights with that number of reps, again, you would have to be some sort of genetic freak, I’m just kidding off course but you may probably be surprise how many people think they’ll be threatening my title just by looking at the weights.
Face the Fear and do it anyway. . . cos’ it just won’t happen!,
Beginners can benefit from 30 minutes of brisk walking, for which they no instruction. But walking is a VERY beginning form of exercise. In fact, I consider walking a form of locomotion, not exercise. When the simplest of life’s requirements, such as walking, climbing stairs, and carrying groceries are exercise, I feel that we’ve let ourselves go soft!!
And for some I guess walking is an ordeal, however more strenuous forms of activity should be explored, in order to respect the principle of progressive overload (ie. “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”)
Resistance training does have a few downsides, depending on your perspective. It does require a certain amount of supervision, at least in the beginning. And of course, it demands hard, physical work, which most people disdain. Infomercial companies know this well – selling their exercise gimmicks with phrases like ‘’you can do it while you watch TV,’’ and ‘’it only takes 10 minutes a day”
Regardless what your exercise regime consists of, your success will largely depend upon the degree to which you really enjoy exercising. You do best what you do most, and you do most what you enjoy doing!