Does Resistance Training Make You Gain Weight?

Does Resistance Training Make You Gain Weight?

Various people make the huge mistake of avoiding resistance training. They feel that doing the resistance-based exercises would lead to bulking up or increasing bodyweight. Due to this, many of the regular exercising freaks just focus on the cardio-related activities.

They just avoid the weight room. Irrespective of what you have heard or read, you should remove those beliefs that avoid you from reaching to your required health and fitness goals. No doubt, such unwanted assumptions would have huge long-term negative health related issues.

Resistance Training Is All About Losing Weight

Resistance Training Would Make You Understand and More Conscious Regarding Your Body

Resistance training also called weightlifting has been one of the major exercises that have been practiced for many centuries. Frankly, it was one of the major methods of building huge muscular strength. Multiple research show that resistance training irrespective of done using body weights, resistance bands, dumbbells or machines, would help to create strength but it would even assist in improving your muscle size. Also, it can help in the counteracting the age-related muscle loss.

Recently, it has been one of the most famous exercise for people that are looking to lose the extra flab. Of course, exercises like cycling and running are very much effective for lowering and removing the body fat. These types of activities would somehow reduce the muscle size and lead to weaker muscles.

Also, that can even make you gain and experience huge amount of weight loss, as your muscles become more and more dense compared to the fat. However, unlike the endurance exercises that most people do, various evidence show that resistance training is quite great on reducing the excess fat. Plus, it can increase your strength and muscle size.

What You Know About the After Burn Effect?

As and when we exercise, our muscles would require more amount of energy compared to what they previously need. Here this energy comes from the ability of our muscles to break down the fat and the carbohydrates using the help of the oxygen.

When you are exercising, you would be breathing faster, and your heart would be working harder to pump more amount of oxygen. The same is regarding the fat and carbohydrates that our exercising muscles use. As soon as you finish your exercise, the oxygen usage would remain elevated just to make sure that the restored muscles reach to the resting state. That is done by the breaking down of carbohydrates and fats.

Here this phenomenon is termed as the excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). It is most called as the ‘after-burn effect’. Now this would describe how long the oxygen would need to remain elevated as soon as you exercise for ensuring that your muscles are recovering.

Frankly, the extend and duration of the after-burn would be based on the type, intensity, and the kind of exercise you are doing. Also, the fitness level and diet would even be considered. Sometimes you would need to do long-lasting exercises. The ones that use various huge muscles and are done or just near the fatigue. Here the results would be longer-lasting and higher after-burn.

If you check out HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and high intensity resistance training are some of the most effective exercises you can do. They would help in the elevation of both long-term and short term after-burn.

Are you aware that the high intensity exercises are more effective? Not only that they are the greatest steady state endurance exercises you can follow. The major reason for this is because it is highly associated with the high intensity interval training. The fatigue that you get leads to the consumption of more oxygen as well as energy. These are necessary for a prolonged period.

Well, you would require them to handle and take care of the damaged muscles and even be able to replenish the reduced energies that are stored. No doubt, such kind of resistance exercise is the best way to get rid of the excess fat. That is possible due to the high amount of calorie cost involved in the actual training session.

Resistance Training Would Be A Great Long-Term Exercise

Not many people realize the fact that the resistance training would be the best and the most effective long-term weight control exercise you can do. The major reason for that is since the muscle size would play a gigantic role of finding out the RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate). That is based on how many calories that your body would be needing to function, when it is at rest.

The resting metabolic rate would be somewhere around the 60-77% of the whole energy expenditure that are present in the non-exercising individuals. Most importantly, fat is the most preferred energy source that your body needs while resting.

When you are increasing the size of your muscles with the assistance of resistance training, you are just increasing the RMR. That would help to increase as well as sustain the fat loss over time.

Multiple studies were conducted, and it was found out that resistance training was the best and the most effective manner for increasing the resting metabolic rate of your body. However, in the case of the combined aerobic and resistance exercises along with the normal aerobic exercises, it would not be hugely effective. You should even understand the necessity of the control calories along with its intake. That would help you to lose the fat and even be able to sustain the fat loss.

Resistance Training Handles All Your Muscles

One thing you must keep in mind is that resistance training and exercise need to make the largest muscle groups engaged. Here the whole body must be used, and the exercise needs to be done standing. Not only has that it needed to involve two or more of the joints.

Frankly, all these aspects make the body work harder. That can lead to increasing the amount of muscles you have and even the RMR. When you check out the effective resistance training program, it needs to combine the volume, intensity, and even the progression.

Here the intensity needs to be quite high, and that would make sure that you are getting challenged when you are working out. The best and the effective means of doing this would be through the usage of the repetition maximum procedure.

Here for doing that, and even for the fat loss, one should do around six to ten repetitions of the exercises. That needs to be followed by resistance exercising that leads to fatigue. Here three to four sets and that too two or three times a day each week would be great for your muscles.

Through the repetition and the maximum exercising method, you can develop progression. Well, the reason for that is because the stronger you become, the more you would require for increasing the resistance or load that would lead to fatigue. Not only that you can achieve progression. This would be by increasing the resistance or intensity so that fatigue occurs after performing fewer repetitions, say eight or six.

Additionally, resistance training would help you to reduce the excess fat. That can be by increasing both after-burns after exercise. This would be followed by increasing your muscle size. Ultimately, that would increase the number of calories burned by you. When you are combining both with a healthy diet, it will only further increase the loss of excess body fat and even also provide other positive health benefits.

When You Are Warming Up Just Before Resistance Training

Keep in mind that you need to warm up your body just before you begin the strength training exercise.

Just begin with the light aerobic exercise like the normal walking, cycling, or rowing. Do these for around five to ten minutes. In addition, you can do a few dynamic stretches. Here the dynamic stretching contains slow controlled movements through the full range of motion.

Doing Advanced Resistance Training

For gaining most of the gains from resistance training, there is only one thing you must do. Try to progressively increase the intensity of your training as per your experience and training goals. This would mean increasing the weight, modifying the duration of the contraction. i.e., the time during which you sustain holding the weight at your muscle’s maximum potential, lowering the rest time, and increasing the volume of training.

As soon as you are continuing with the resistance training regularly for four to six weeks, you can progressively increase the intensity of your training as your muscles adapt.

Of course, various research show that expert supervision and instruction may improve your results as it will ensure you practice proper technique and follow safety principles. If you experience any discomfort or pain, contact a health professional before progressing with your program.

Doing the Best Repetitive Maximum (RM) And Resistance Training

One of the best means for developing the muscle strength is allowing your muscles to contract to the maximum potential at any of the given time.

When you do the resistance training, the MVC would be measured by the term XRM. So, the RM can be the maximum number of repetitions that would be completed along with the given resistance or weight. You can take ‘X’ as the number of times a certain weight can be lifted before the muscle fatigues.

Now the RM range can help to find out what kind of improvements the muscles would make. Here the optimal range to improve one’s muscle strength would be around 8–12 RM for a beginner. However, it would be 2–7 RM for the more advanced persons.

For example, when the formula 7RM comes up, it means the person can lift the weight seven times before the muscles are too tired to continue. Additionally, the higher weights mean lower RM.

What Muscles Recovery Occurs During Advanced Resistance Training?

Like clearly stated, muscles would require time to get repaired as soon as the workout is over. When you do not provide your muscles enough time to recover, then it would mean they are not bigger or getting stronger. A good rule of thumb would be to rest the muscle group for at least 48 hours.

As soon as you have got the required experience in the resistance training, you can even take the support of the exercise professionals and allied health professionals. Here you would like to consider the split program.

Improve And increase Calorie Expenditure.

Sometimes the increased caloric expenditure would help the resistance training to be both acute and due effect. That means the training sessions would be interesting and provide long-term effects for increasing the muscle mass.

For example, a study showed that a single resistance training session lead to the five-percentage increase of the resting energy expenditure. In the same way, consistent resistance training would increase one’s metabolic rate.

Here this would be around 7% for both older and young adults. Additionally, there are the post-workout benefits. That continues with increasing the muscle mass and boosting the metabolism. Well, muscle mass might need to have more energy and that too for the maintenance of tissues.

Thus, consistent resistance training would easily help you to burn more calories all around the day. That would assist with your weight loss goals, even while you are at work or relaxing on the couch.

Conclusion

No doubt, resistance training is one of the best exercises to do when you want to lose weight. It would help you to be fit and make you feel healthier.

There is no harm in trying the resistance training when you feel that you are getting the extra weight added to your body. Having a leaner body with higher muscle mass ensures your resting metabolic rate is higher. Why would someone say no to burning more even at rest?

Author

Saravavan Nadarajan (Vanan)

Vanan, fitness expert and leader at EzFit Singapore, specializes in holistic training—home-based, boot camps, and corporate fitness—with over a decade of industry experience.

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