For
years, women have been told that losing weight through diet and cardio was the
way to look great in a bathing suit. The result was a lot of women who were
thin but flabby and without the shape, definition and curves they were hoping
would magically appear through fat loss alone.
Now,
women, and the media that informs them, are finally beginning to understand
that weight-training is the real answer to a sleek, strong, sexy body. Yet
there are still so many misconceptions and so much misinformation about how to
use weight training to get that body.
You
Have to Know What You’re Working with before You Can Work It!
The
last thing you want to do is to walk into the gym without a thorough
understanding of the two types of muscle, how they’re stimulated and shaped and
what each of them does for your appearance. Wandering from machine to machine,
trying a little of this and a few of those is not going to get you the body you
desire. However, that body is more attainable than you probably think. Once you
understand the composition of your muscles and how to reshape them, you’ll be
able to go into the gym (or even into your home workout space) and actually
redesign your body very quickly.
The
Two Types of Muscle Tone – Myogenic and Neurogenic
There
are two types of muscle tone in your body and they determine how your muscles
look at rest and how your muscles look when they’re being flexed or worked.
Here’s a really simple visual illustration: Your arm hanging loose as you
prepare to lift a weight = myogenic muscle tone.
Your
arm as your curl a dumbbell toward your body = neurogenic muscle tone.
Myogenic
tone determines how your muscles look when they are at rest.
Basically,
it’s the residual tension in your muscles and is based on the
density
of your muscles. It’s a permanent change in your muscles that is there even
while you’re lying still on a beach towel or curled up reading a book. The
density of your muscles is affected by stimulating the contractile proteins
actin and myosin, with moderately heavy weights and relatively low reps,
between 8-15 reps to be more specific.
Neurogenic
muscle tone determines how your muscles look when they are working. By
“working”, I mean anything from reaching for your child to running up a flight
of stairs. Neurogenic muscle tone determines how hard and defined your muscles
look during movement. You change your
neurogenic muscle tone with heavy weight/low rep exercises. (By low reps, I
mean between 3-7 reps per exercise.)
This
type of program works by improving the efficiency of your CNS or central
nervous system. Specifically, it increases the sensitivity of the gamma and
alpha motor neurons.
Why
Working with Heavy Weights is the Way to Real Muscle Toning
In
other words, that waist to hip ratio that gives you a sexy, hourglass shape and
that full, round tight butt are the result of myogenic muscle toning and those
defined arms and diamond-shaped calves you want to see when you’re lifting
something or walking are the result of neurogenic muscle toning. As you can
see, you want both.
Working
with heavy weights actually improves both myogenic and neurogenic muscle tone.
It increases the density of your muscles (which is what gives your body its
actual shape) through hypertrophy (growth) and increases the sensitivity of the
gamma and alpha motor neurons to give your individual muscles that hard,
defined tone you’re looking for.
You’ll
be happy to know that you don’t have to deadlift 200 pounds to do this, nor do
you have to spend a lot more time in the gym. Working out with heavier weights
and lower reps achieves so much more than endless low-weight/high-rep routines
and in much less time.
Burn
Fat While You’re Building Muscle and Redesign Your Body
Now,
some of you are probably thinking that you need to work on losing body fat
first, before you can think about building muscle. Let me explain why that
thinking is a little bit backwards.
Adding
lean muscle to your body actually helps you to lose fat faster and it does this
in a few ways. First, it boosts your metabolism, helping you to burn more
calories throughout the day. Second, it helps regulate certain fat-burning and
fat-storing hormones in your body so that you can lose stored body fat. Third,
weight training to the point of muscle fatigue with heavier weights will
actually cause your metabolism to burn even more calories for as many as 48
hours after you work out.
Building
Muscle Increases Your Calorie Deficit
You’ve
probably heard that your base metabolic rate is based on how much you weigh,
but that’s only partly true. It’s also based on your body’s composition, which
is the ratio of muscle to fat. A woman
who weighs 120 pounds with 22% body fat does not burn calories at the same rate
as a woman who weighs 120 pounds but has only 18% body fat. Muscle tissue burns
calories; fat tissue does not. The more muscle tissue you have, the more
calories you need each day. This makes it much easier to lose stored fat
through a calorie deficit, without having to cut your intake so low that you’re
starving and fatigued.
Building
Muscle Regulates the Hormones that Burn or Store Fat
Adding
lean muscle to your body also helps to regulate and balance several hormones
that either store or burn the fat you now have. In particular, increasing lean
muscle tissue helps to regulate insulin secretion by making your body’s cells
more sensitive to that insulin. Insulin is a fat storage hormone. It’s next to
impossible to lose stored body fat if you are insulin resistant, because the
presence of insulin in your bloodstream actually stimulates fat storage. This
is true even if you’re eating a strict diet.
One
of insulin’s main jobs is to transport glycogen through the phospholipid layer
of your muscle cells’ membranes so that it can be burned as energy.
The
less sensitive to insulin that those cells are, the less glycogen they can
absorb. That leftover glycogen is then turned back into glucose and stored as
fat, particularly around your tummy. This is why metabolic syndrome (insulin
insensitivity) is marked by excess belly fat.
The
more muscle you have and the more you work that muscle, the more glycogen your
body can absorb and burn and the less fat you store. Not only that, but as your
sensitivity to insulin increases, the amount of insulin you need to transport
glycogen decreases. Less insulin in your bloodstream will then actually
stimulate your body to start burning off that stubborn fat you already have
stored. In essence, building muscle turns your body into a fat-burning factory.
Training
to Fatigue Burns Calories Long After Your Workout
The
old school of thought on weight training for women was to work out for long
periods with low weights and high reps. This method may burn more calories
during your workout than a much shorter, heavy weight/low rep routine, but once
you’re done working out, you’re also done burning calories. This is because it
demands very little of your muscles and doesn’t result in muscle fatigue.
Training
with heavy weights and low reps doesn’t burn as many calories because it takes
a much shorter time to complete your workout. However, it does get your muscles
to the point of fatigue, which results not only in muscle growth (hypertrophy)
but also increased oxygen uptake after your workout. This means that your body
is burning calories at a higher rate throughout the rest of the day and for as
long as 48 hours after you leave the gym. In other words, you burn far more
calories in the long term, even while you’re relaxing or sleeping.
The
Real Way to a Lean, Sexy Body
If
you really want to transform your body in the shortest period of time and with
the most dramatic results, you need to lose fat and build muscle
simultaneously. You also need to stop focusing on how much you weigh.
It’s
not how much you weigh that determines how you look; it’s how much fat and
muscle make up that weight. In fact, you could end up gaining weight when all
is said and done, but look a thousand times better. This is because muscle
tissue weighs more than fat tissue, but takes up much less space because of its
density. Let me give you an illustration.
Imagine
filling a plastic bag with one pound of rocks and then twisting it tightly
shut. That plastic bag will fit easily into the palm of your hand. Now imagine
filling a plastic bag with one pound of Styrofoam packing peanuts.
You
might not be able to wrap your arms around it! This is why a woman who stands
5’4 and weighs 115 pounds with 16% body fat is rocking those skinny jeans while
another woman of the same height and weight but 26% body fat is hiding her body
in sweatpants. A pound is not a pound, ladies.
If
you focus on burning fat through interval cardio and building lean muscle
tissue (both myogenic and neurogenic) through heavy weight/low rep training,
you’ll get that lean, curvy, sexy body you’re looking for, without starving
yourself and without working out for hours on end every day.
Eat
more, work less; look incredible. How great a deal is that?
By Flavia Del Monte, R.N., C.P.T., C.N.
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