Trying to Lose Weight? Here’s Why Strength Training Is Important

Don’t spend all your time on the treadmill if you’re trying to drop a pants size. 

Strength training is an important way to boost your weight loss. Here’s why—and how.

Trying to lose a few pounds, but the scale won’t budge? Try adding more weight—to your workouts. Weight training—using free weights or kettlebells to build muscle—is a type of strength training that not only can help you slim down, but also can gain you a ton of other health benefits.

Here’s why weight training may be what you need to get the scale moving in the right direction, plus a few tips and moves to get you started.

Burn More Calories

It’s really pretty simple: Weight training builds muscle, and muscle burns more calories than fat—up to three times more, according to some estimates.

Muscles are fat-burning machines so the more muscle you have, the more calories you’re going to burn.

It doesn’t end after you leave the gym either. Your body is still torching calories for the next 24 to 48 hours as it works to repair stressed muscle tissues. That’s known as the afterburn effect, another name for excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). The more oxygen you use both during and after a workout, the greater the EPOC. And studies show strength training is one of the best ways to do it.

All of this is very good news if you’re trying to lose weight.

Think about it. With weight training, you’re revving up your calorie burn. You’re boosting your metabolism—possibly by up to 5 percent, according to one nine-month study. And since you’re likely already watching what you eat, your exercise routine is now working with your diet to help you shed those unwanted pounds.

Burning more calories throughout your day, combined with a sensible diet, is going to maximize your weight loss.

Not only that, but it helps keep the weight off, too. One study found that less than an hour and a half each week of resistance training helped keep dieters from gaining back weight, and especially harmful belly fat

Health Benefits of Strength Training

The benefits go beyond the bathroom scale, too.

 Weight training improves your posture, helps your endurance, builds strength and reduces your chance of injuries. Research shows it can also boost heart health, improve cholesterol and increase bone density. It also slows the inevitable strength decline as we age, as it keeps our muscles from turning to mush—and being replaced with fat—as we get older.

 

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