The Truth About Resistance Training: Your Key to Being Lean

By Team Beachbody

Resistance training (weight training, exercise bands, etc.) is an often-overlooked key element to fitness. No offense to running, walking, and other cardiovascular endeavors, but if you were to do only one type of exercise, resistance training would be the most effective for keeping you healthy and fit.

Many women eschew weight training because they fear they'll become bulky. But you'll never get bulky from a few hours of weight training per week. Female bodybuilders spend years of intense training, coupled with special diets to look the way they do-and most can't gain as much muscle as they want by working out full time. Getting "muscle bound" is not a realistic possibility for most people trying to shape their figure.

What about your cardiovascular needs? It is true that to be healthy you need to exercise your heart. Resistant training takes care of this as well. Mind you, it's not the perfect training if your goal is to run a marathon, but if you want a healthy heart it can be achieved through resistance training. Consider this: when you do a set of weights, your heart rate increases to 70 to 90% of its max. When you rest in between sets, it should still never drop below 100—110 bpm. So essentially, a 45-minute resistance workout works your heart in an elevated state for 45 continuous minutes and burns more calories than 45 minutes of jogging.

However, the main benefit of resistance training comes when you analyze aging. As you age, your body loses its lean body mass. Resistance training builds muscle. For an extreme example, look at Jack LaLanne. He has weight trained his entire life. Now, at 87, his body age when measured by his musculature and fitness level is 29 years old—incredible!

The skeleton is a heavy machine, which relies on muscle to keep it erect. If you want to remain vital with good posture, keep your muscles toned so you can support and control the weight of your own bones.

Finally—muscle consumes energy. So the more toned and active your muscles, the more energy you consume. That translates to a more active metabolism. So by implementing resistance training in your routine, you are actually serving to improve your metabolism and burn more fat and calories.