The Importance of Weight Training in Fitness

You typically go to the gym and you find two types of people, weight trainers and cardio trainers.  But the best athletes do a combination of the two.  Obviously everyone understands that for weight loss you have to do cardio.  But you should also weight train for fat loss.

Muscle burns calories faster than fat does.  So by adding a few pounds of lean muscle you burn more calories throughout the day.  Even while you sleep!  This will help promote fat loss much faster.


In addition weight training will give you a more toned and defined look.  Most of us, even women want to be thin with some muscle definition that can only be achieved by lifting weights.

I talk to a lot of women who are afraid of bulking up by lifting weights but this is not the case if done properly.  The key to getting toned and ripped as opposed to big and bulky is the amount of weight you lift.

If you want to tone up, lift light weights in the 12-15 rep range.  If you want to make you muscles massive lift heavy weights in the 4-6 rep range.  But make sure you are lifting the weights so the last rep or two is a struggle regardless of if you are doing 4 reps or 15.  The point is to make it hard on your muscles so they adapt and get stronger.

If you are able to talk during you set, you are not doing your body much good because you simply are not putting it under stress.  If you are not having a hard time with the weight by the end of the set add more weight.  Otherwise you are just wasting your time.