Why Women MUST Perform Strength Training to Lose Fat

Hey everyone, Callie Durbrow here with a guest post for my pal Tristan. Tristan is an awesome trainer and the man when it comes to core training. I just wanted to drop in with a little female perspective regarding the subject of strength training for fat loss.

Strength training is THE MOST important way to lose fat. Often times though, it’s the thing that women avoid because of the notion that they will turn into some pumped up body builder as soon as the pick up the weights.

This will not happen and I’ll explain why later. Here’s the real truth and the inside scoop on how you can lose fat, tighten your entire body and just look flat out amazing…

Lose Body Fat—>Boost Your Metabolism—>This is done through a balanced diet and increasing LEAN MUSCLE—> Resistance Training

There is the formula folks….it’s simple and does not involve a lot of complex hours at the gym, fancy machines or running miles.  Here’s why it works…

The more lean muscle tissue that you body has, the more calories you will burn at rest. This is what happens when we talk about increasing your metabolism. The long term goal is to have your metabolism at a high level constantly. That leads to fat loss. Why does this happen? Because lean muscle is a very active tissue and needs calories (energy) to burn at a much higher rate than fat.

When you have a high amount of lean muscle tissue, you will be burning calories when you are not working out (cool, huh?)…you will burn while you work, sleep…hey, I’m burning calories as I write this…

So many people (women specifically) want to lose weight. Now what does this mean exactly? When you focus all of your efforts on getting that pesky scale to display a lower number, you are not really progressing toward the ultimate goal. We can all lose weight but what does that do for us in the long run?

Do you want to weigh less or take up less space?

Think about that for a second…You could weigh 140 pounds and have 40% body fat (that’s 56 pounds of fat!) or you could be 140 pounds and 20% body fat (28 pounds of fat)…which is a very healthy percentage for an active woman.

If you are only focused on what the scale says; you will probably not achieve the ultimate goal of gaining lean muscle and losing fat.  How would I take up less space if I weighed the same, you ask?

Muscle is an active tissue, as we mentioned, and it’s also a very dense tissue. Muscle is 1.1g per cubic centimeter, which fat tissue is 0.9g per cubic centimeter. That means you can pack a lot more muscle into a small space than you can fat!

Gaining muscle is often a scary thought for women. I know what you are all thinking…”I don’t want to look bulky and thick.”
Don’t worry…women do not possess enough growth hormone and testosterone to produce such an effect. Plus, when training for fat loss and lean muscle development (I hate the word “tone”, but that’s pretty much what it is), you are not going to be pumping out body building type workouts.

Here’s how you can efficiently and effectively develop the body of your dreams:

1. Use large movements such as squats, lunges, chin ups, push ups and step ups that will burn more calories and use more muscles
2. Train in circuit or complex formats that will boost your heart rate and help you train in less time
3. Lift heavy weights with perfect technique
4. Use shorter duration, higher intensity
5. Avoid machines, isolated movements, and long slow cardio

If you are looking for a fun, efficient and effective workout…variations of strength training is the way to go. Your clothes will fit better, you will feel tight and lean, you will be burning fat at rest and you will have more confidence. Train hard!

Ladies – Go Here for my fat loss advice to lose weight, get a new body with tight sexy toned muscles that turn heads!