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As a FIRM Instructor, I have learned how to workout so that my body gets the highest rate of return in the most efficient time. I want to share that knowledge with you.
Heavier Weights = Smaller Body
Combining strength training with aerobics lets you lose significantly more fat than you would from aerobics alone.
Strength training makes and keeps our bodies trim and youthful. As we get older, our bodies naturally lose our lean muscle tissue and gain excess fat – that means a little less muscle and a little more fat with each year. Doing both cardio and strength workouts simultaneously reverse both muscle loss and fat gain so that our bodies become and stay healthy, more youthful, and more beautiful. You will increase your body’s lean muscle tissue. Muscle burns calories, even at rest; thus, you actually raise your metabolic rate when you gain muscle.
Using your heaviest weight sculpts lean muscle tissue faster, so you get more defined muscles and burn more fat than if you used lighter weights for the same exercise. To understand the reason that heavier weights give faster results, you must first know that each of your muscles consists of bundles of individual muscle fibers. When you exercise, each individual fiber either totally contracts or does not contract at all. Your muscles utilize more individual fibers when you use a heavier weight, so heavier weights equal faster results.
No Longer Feeling the Muscle Burn? = Increase Your Weights!
How do you know when it is time to increase the weights that you use? Initially, you must learn to do each strength training exercise using proper form. If you are a beginner, it’s best to start with no weights until you learn how to properly execute the exercise.
Once you have mastered proper form, you should be doing each exercise with weights. When strength training you should fully work the target muscle(s) to the point of exhaustion. That means that you want the last two repetitions of a particular exercise to be difficult for you to complete when using a full range of motion.
Exhausting your muscles stimulates them to grow back just a little stronger during each rest period between workouts. It is muscle exhaustion and the resulting muscle growth from rest that causes you to lose fat, look slimmer, and shape your body.
Strive to increase your strength for maximum muscle gains. Once you are able to fully complete each repetition of an exercise with ease, you need to increase your weights so that you maximize your results. Only weight training can dramatically reverse the body composition changes of aging. And only weight training can give you a shapelier body, and make you dramatically slimmer and more beautiful at any age.
A Sampling of My Weights
Here is a breakdown of some of the weights I use during a cardio+sculpt workout.
- Biceps: a pair of 15-pound dumbbells
- French Press: one 30-pound dumbbell
- Kickbacks: a pair of 10 or 12 pound dumbbells
- Overhead Press: a pair of 15 or 20 pound dumbbells
- Lat Row: one 30 pound dumbbell
- Bent Row: a pair of 15 pound dumbbells
- Bench Press: a pair of 15 pound dumbbells
- Pec Flies: a pair of 12 to 15 pound dumbbells
- Leg Press, Dips and Lunges: a pair of 15 pound dumbbells
- Squats: a pair of 20 pound dumbbells
Tips for Increasing Weight and Achieving Maximum Results
- Always complete a warm up and stretch for each workout.
- Do just one set with the heavier weight early in the workout.
- Start a set by trying a few repetitions with the heavier weight and then decreasing in the middle of the set.
- Always exhale as your muscle contracts and inhale as you release. Never hold your breath.
- Focus on the muscle groups you are working as you exercise. Concentrate solely on those muscles and clear your mind from distractions.
- Schedule rest days. If you have just used a sculpt or cardio + sculpt workout, give the muscles that you worked 24 hours to recover.
- Eat healthy foods. Your body needs proteins, healthy carbohydrates, and the right good fats to stay healthy.
Article courtesy of The FIRM Believers Club, an online community that helps you reach your fitness goals. With maximum-efficiency home workouts, support and motivation from The FIRM Master Instructors, daily tips, personalized workout rotation calendars, and access to other members through discussion boards, The Club provides all the tools you need to get in the shape you want.
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