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Weight Lifting for Weight Loss
Weight lifting for weight-loss works for men and women, it's only in the last decade that women are realizing the benefits of losing fat by training with weights. When the fitness boom started in the 1980's women were lining up to use cardio for fat-loss, but the awareness of fat-loss benefits from weight training has changed everything.
There are well-proven benefits of doing cardio for fat-loss; however there are a few advantages that training with weights will have over cardio. An example that all bodybuilders are fully aware of, is that muscle uses more than twice the amount of calories to survive, boosting metabolism speed.
Sports science has proven that lean body mass increases your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), which is where the popular caption "Muscle Burns Fat" is true to some extent. It requires no energy for adipose tissue (i.e. fat) to just sit in your body. Once fat is there it will stay until enough external energy is required to start using this resource for energy.
All your skeletal muscle tissue requires energy to sustain itself, called "active tissue" which requires between 30-60 calories every day, just being there before it gets used. When a woman trains sensibly with weights eating the correct diet she can easily add 5lbs of muscle in a year and increase her RMR, reducing body-fat.
From a calorie counting point of view, it could be estimated that an additional 5lbs of muscle will increase your resting metabolism (RMR) by 50 calories every day. This will mean you'll burn an additional 250 calories every day (50 calories/day x 5lbs). One pound of fat requires 3,500 calories; this means you'll lose 26lbs a year.
The awareness of using weights to help reduce body-fat has been a long time coming. Sports science certainly has helped a lot to increase the awareness of the simple facts mentioned above, where an additional 5lbs of muscle will help you lose 26lbs of fat a year.
If we compare the very sought after "after-burn" that most women use cardio to achieve fat-loss against weight training, we will see that compared to that calorie loss from after-burn weight training increases fat-loss permanently, increasing longevity and making you healthier.
HIT IT HEAVY
Muscle tissue growth only happens when external pressure is applied. Using light weights, doing rep after rep won't increase the amount of muscle you have, it'll just burn calories. This means that even after you eating cleaner on reduced-calories, your muscles won't grow.
Women are slowly becoming more aware of the fact that training with heavy weights will not make them "bulky". Training for muscle gain using lower reps with heavy weights will burn a lot more calories plus you get the long-term effect of increasing your RMR.
Doing compound movements will use the maximum amount of your lean body mass, recruiting more muscle fibers and releasing fat-burning, muscle building hormones. Below is a good example of a fat burning split routine which will not only increase your overall lean body mass, but it'll help you lose fat fast.
MONDAY: CHEST/BACK
Decline Bench-press 3 X 10 reps
Incline Bench-press 3 X 10 reps
Flat Bench-press 3 X 10 reps
Cable Cross-overs 3 X 10 reps
D/B Flyes 3 X 10 reps
Stiff-legged Deadlifts 3 X 10 reps
Hyperextensions 3 X 10 reps
Bent-over D/B Rows 3 X 10 reps
T-Bar Rowing 3 X 10 reps
Lat Pull-downs 3 X 10 reps
Pull-Ups 3 X 10 reps
Decline bench-press 3 X 10 reps
TUESDAY: DELTS/ABS
Arnold Press 3 X 12 reps
D/B Press 3 X 12 reps
D/B lateral raises 3 X 12 reps
Bent-over D/B Raises 3 X 12 reps
Plate Twists 3 X 30 reps
Hanging Knee Raises 3 X 30 reps
WEDNESDAY: BICEPS/TRICEPS
Hammer Curls 3 X 10 reps
D/B Incline Curls 3 X 10 reps
One-arm Preacher Curls 3 X 10 reps
D/B Kickbacks 3 X 10 reps
Weighted Bench Dips 3 X 10 reps
Close-grip Bench-press 3 X 10 reps
THURSDAY: QUADS/ABS
Barbell Squats 3 X 10 reps
Walking Lunges 3 X 10 reps
Leg Press 3 X 10 reps
Ab Roller 3 X 30 reps
Decline Crunches 3 X 30 reps
Crunches 3 X 30 reps
FRIDAY: HAMS/CALVES
Roman Deadlifts 3 X 12 reps
Seated Leg Curls 3 X 12 reps
Lying Leg Curls 3 X 12 reps
Standing Calves 3 X 15 reps
Donkey Calf Raises 3 X 15 reps
Saturday and Sunday Rest