Weight Training for Your Health and Nice Body
Resistance training, in my opinion, is one of the missing keys to the long term weight loss success many people seek. Why do I say that? Because it helps to keep muscle mass up.
One of the primary reasons people typically slowly gain fat over time is due to a progressively slowing metabolism, which is largely the result of a progressive loss of muscle mass. Also, when people lose weight by cutting calories as their sole weight loss method, they shed muscle mass, which causes their metabolism to slow and makes it easier to put back on lost weight.
Since weight training is so important to long term weight loss, how should it be performed? In a progressive fashion, as was described in yesterday’s post.
In that post, the number of repetitions one should do was detailed. In this post, the number of sets we should do will be described.
Luckily for the busy people out there, it is not necessary to spend hours per day working out. Doing one work set per body part or group of muscles is enough to get almost all of the strength improvements one would get from doing two or three sets. Studies have shown this to be true. For those that have the time and the inclination to maximize strength gains from weight training, multiple sets per body part, using 6 – 12 RM (rep maximum) sets will do the trick.
As for health benefits, again single set programs have been shown to produce most of the health benefits of multiple set routines. And because they require less time, single-set programs increase the likelihood that people will stick with them, while reducing the time and sometimes the financial commitments necessary to engage in such programs.
Since most working people are not interested in competing in bodybuilding or power lifting contests, single set routines may be the best bang for their buck. I would warm up before a very difficult set. Doing a warm up set plus a single max rep set for each major body part could be performed in less than an hour.
As for how many days per week to workout, we’ll cover that along with other info in the next post.
Darryl
One Response to “Weight Training for Your Health and Nice Body”
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Hi Darryl,
That is certainly good fitness news to discover that even the simple addition of small weight workouts on individual muscle groups can make such an impact on our total fitness. Super tips for busy business people looking to keep fit or do better.
Happy Dating and Relationships,
April Braswell
http://www.aprilbraswell.com/BoomerDating.html
Single Boomer Dating Expert