If we want to have any chance of reaching our fitness goals then lifting light weights for a lot of repetitions is not going to cut it. The most effective ways to achieve our physical endeavours is to progressively lift heavier weights, however many people do not embrace using heavier weights as they should.
We all have a wealth of physical potential that is all there for us to exploit, and once we learn how to tap into it then it can literally transform every aspect of our lives for the better. When we utilise the benefits of heavier weights an amazing array of benefits come our way, like improving the function of our brains, hormones, metabolic rate, and heart.
In this article I aim to show you how to stop selling yourself short in your workouts, whilst learning why progressing with weights is the most effective way to ensure you experience some amazing changes to your body.
You’ll Rapidly Become Much Stronger
Being stronger can help us out with a lot of issues. The stronger we are the better we are able to transform our bodies and physique with training. This is because strength correlates with better hormone health and levels of fat burning hormones. This means that with increased strength, the faster your metabolism will be, making a lean physique much easier to obtain and maintain.
Increased strength also can give us greater confidence and mental capacity to challenge ourselves. Building our strength requires us to embrace hard work, knuckle down and get the workout done. When you really go for it and progress to a heavier weight, you’ll amaze yourself by finding out what you true limits are.
You’ll Improve Your Physique
When we build just that little bit of muscle when we use those heavier weights, wonders can happen. It will provide us with that little bit of protection like when we pick up the kids off the floor or lump a load of shopping bags in the boot. Additionally, it can help give you the body you desire and the metabolism that helps you to achieve and maintain that fit physique.
The benefits of using progressively heavier weights when working out can also translate to protecting our health. It can help prevent osteoporosis by building the strength and density of our bones. Furthermore, the amount of insulin receptors we have increases, meaning the body is better equipped to utilise energy properly. Consequently, we will have a reduced risk of diabetes, obesity or heart disease.
Getting Toned Will Be Much Easier
Here is the little secret to getting toned, it requires two things:
- Lose excess body fat
- Increase the size of muscle cells to provide shape.
Toning is all about having the ability to show off your lean muscle. For most, this requires the loss of excess fat that covers the muscle. But it is the muscle that provides the natural, sculpted curves of your body so you don’t just look bony and thin when the fat is lost. The best way to use exercise to shed some busy fat is to favour the more anaerobic exercise such as lifting weights and sprints. This is because this type of exercise is the best exercise for causing a metabolic disturbance and a huge fat burning hormonal response that is sure to help shed the pounds and keep our metabolism high, meaning we will be burning a lot more calories when we are resting. Thus making it a lot easier to lose body fat when we have more muscle on our bones.
You’ll Burn More Calories and Lose More Fat
Plenty of people out there still believe that cardio exercise like running, cross-trainer or rowing is best for burning calories and fat loss. This is because the amount of calories you burn during exercise is usually higher with cardio than with weights. But the magic really happens after the workout.
When we lift weights we activate what is called the afterburn effect. This means that when we lift weights the post-workout energy expenditure is significantly increased compared to when we do steady state cardio, due to the metabolic stress we place on the muscles. This afterburn effect can in fact last up to 48 hours after you finish your workout.
This shows that doing more work during the workout, which is the way you increase energy expenditure with cardio, isn’t necessary when you incorporate weights because it induces stress in your body that cannot be accounted for by just measuring work completed.
You’ll Gain Confidence and Inner Drive from Competing With Yourself
Many people that are very new to the gym, or are not consistent with their training habits, often make the mistake that they are incapable of lifting heavier weights.
They often think of themselves as being too old, or too weak to start lifting some weights. Or they worry that lifting heavy will make them bulk up to be big and muscular. It is time for these misconceptions to stop. Many of us are a lot stronger than we think, and you can definitely handle more than a tiny dumbbell that does not offer much of a challenge.
Firstly, lets clear the air with this big and muscular myth right now. To become big and muscular you must train and diet in a very specific way, whilst also training consistently for a few intense years. Muscles don’t just appear once you start exercising with a few weights. Furthermore, the fact that women start out with so much less muscle, and significantly more body fat than men makes it nearly impossible to get bulky from a basic training programme. What does happen is that you lose body fat and reveal any muscle that was hiding underneath to give you a sleek, sculpted definition.
When we go for it, and challenge ourselves to find out our true strength, then this can really boost your confidence to try and keep challenging yourself to really see what you are capable of with regard to your fitness. Whilst this is happening, without realising it, your body will also follow suit and start showing some amazing changes that occurs when we start to challenge and progress ourselves in the gym. This can then lead to further confidence in the gym with exercise and the positive repercussions of progressive training, plus confidence outside the gym will also skyrocket when it comes to feeling and looking good and healthy. So I bet if you start to push yourself a bit further out of your comfort one, then I can assure you wondrous things can happen.
Kristian