If you are on a mission to drop the weight and tone your body, you may be spending hours on the treadmill trying to walk your way fit. While a regular cardio workout is indeed a good first step in a complete fitness program, it may not be enough to effectively lose pounds and keep them off. Instead, the answer lies in a cardio program that is supported by strength training sessions two or three times a week. While you may not think there is a connection between burning fat and building muscle, you will be surprised at just how close the connection is.

Let’s Get Metabolic

The reason that muscle mass has such a huge impact on your fat burning ability is because muscle is the most metabolically active tissue in your body. In fact, muscle alone can burn up to 50 calories per pound, which means that if you add five pounds of muscle to your body you can burn an extra 250 calories every day. Add that to a regular aerobic workout that burns approximately 300 calories in a single session, and you are well on your way to the lean, mean body you have been dreaming about.

Strength Training Basics

Okay, an extra five pounds of muscle sounds great in the overall fat burning plan, but how do you get there?   The really good news about strength training is that you don’t have to do it every day – in fact, three times a week is the maximum amount of training sessions that you should include in your fitness program. The reason for the less frequent sessions is the fact that muscle builds up best when it is given plenty of time to rest between working out. This recovery period will allow your muscles to replenish their energy supply and increase in size. A minimum of two days is generally recommended as the appropriate rest time for strength training.

When you do workout, you need to keep three things in mind to maximize the benefits of your strength training session. The first is the importance of recovery or rest time, which we have already covered. The second is progressive overload, meaning that you must force your muscles to work harder at every session. This can be done through a combination of increasing the amount of weight or doing more repetitions. A general rule is that increasing weight amounts will build mass and increasing reps will tone more effectively. Finally, intensity is an important part of a strength training program to force your body to build strength. Intensity can be accomplished by performing repetitions until you physically can no longer do so. There is hardly a benefit to performing 10 bicep curls when those upper arms could easily handle 16. Curl until you can’t curl any more, and watch those muscles grow!

If you want to lose the weight while toning and strengthening your body, don’t overlook the benefits of a regular strength training program. The fat will burn and the pounds will drop, and you are guaranteed to love the results.

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