Side Pattern

Ever look at your favorite female celebrity and think you’d kill for a body like that? Would it shock you to know that the women you envy didn’t obtain their bodies by simply running or hitting the stair climber?The sad truth is that many women who are trying to get into shape find a lot of differing (and often wrong) opinions on the best way to approach their goals on fitness. Many of these are perpetuated by other women who heard it from someone else and not from scientific fact. Unfortunately, it is a long held belief that just doing cardio is the best approach and that a woman has no business lifting weight like a man. Ever look at the weight area versus the cardio area of a big box gym? See the trend? However, contrary to popular belief, cardio isn’t necessarily the best way to burn calories and body fat, but in fact resistance training has been proven to significantly increase overall effectiveness of your workouts. In fact resistance training has been shown to not only burn calories during the workout, but also lead to additional burnt calories after your workout is complete. There is a term known as EPOC or “excess post-exercise oxygen consumption” which simply means that your body requires extra calories-calories that typically come from the breakdown of fat stores and free fatty acids moving into the blood stream and burning off. That’s the goal right, to burn off unwanted fat? This is the way to do it!Additionally, with the increase in muscle mass from your resistance training you should see an increase in your resting metabolic rate due to the fact that the human body requires more calories to maintain muscle mass than it does to maintain fat. This means that even while at rest your body is burning more calories than before.