FAQs
Will supplements help me lose weight and/or gain muscle?
The answer is yes! The right supplements do work when your nutrition and exercise is on point. When working out to lose weight and/or gain muscle you are pushing your body beyond what is typical. Eating right is always most important- don’t get me wrong. But combined with the right supplements you will have more energy, endurance, strength, and better recovery.
Your body will be primed to lose fat and/or gain muscle more efficiently.
What Is the Best Way to Lose Fat?
The simple (and complex) answer is that there is no “best way” to lose fat. Each client will respond differently to a training program.
Activities that incorporate many muscle groups and are weight bearing use more calories per minute and are therefore better suited for fat loss than non-weight-bearing activities that do not use many muscles.
Both strength training and endurance exercise have been shown to decrease body fat percentage. However, aerobic exercise appears to have a greater impact on fat loss than does strength training. A combination of endurance and strength training results in more fat loss than either exercise regimen alone
If I Lift Weights, Will I Get Bigger Muscles?
Whether or not you will get bigger muscles (hypertrophy) depends on three basic factors: genetics, gender and training intensity. Genetics is mostly manifested as muscle fiber type; people with predominantly fast-twitch fibers acquire larger muscles more easily than people with predominantly slow-twitch fibers. In relation to gender, males acquire larger muscles than females do, because males have greater amounts of testosterone and other sex hormones that influence protein metabolism. Thus, females experience less muscle hypertrophy with strength improvement than males do. Training intensity is the only factor you can control.
Hypertrophy results from an increase in the number of contractile proteins, which in turn increases the size of the muscle fibers.
If the training goal is hypertrophy, the load lifted should be at least 80 percent of the one-repetition maximum (1 RM), as a general guideline.
What Is the Difference Between Weight Machines and Free Weights?
Ignoring the effect of gravity in creating resistance during all movements, free weights keep the resistance on the muscle constant throughout the joint’s range of motion, while weight machines use variable resistance, with the resistance changing throughout the range of motion. Machines place more stress on the muscles at the angles at which muscles can produce greater force. On the other hand, movements using free weights occur in a three-dimensional plane, while most weight machines allow movement only in a single plane. With machines, the movement is guided, so only the major muscles required to perform the movement are used. With free weights, the added task of balancing the weights in the three-dimensional plane recruits other functional muscles that machines do not recruit.
When new to weight lifting, you should probably begin with machines to train the major muscles, and then use free weights to train more specific movements.
How Often Should I Work Out/Lift Weights?
According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), it is recommended to exercise 20 to 60 minutes, three to five days a week for health/fitness promotion. Exercising only three days a week may be enough for previously sedentary people to improve their fitness, but it will take more exercise to see further improvements. There is nothing wrong with lifting weights every day, just as there is nothing wrong with running every day. Muscles do not know the difference between lifting weights or running; the only thing muscles know how to do is to contract to overcome a resistance. It all depends on your fitness goals. For basic gains in strength, your clients need to lift weights only two to three times a week. For more advanced clients, lifting weights more often is fine. Keep in mind that some experts recommend not working the same muscle groups two days in succession, in order to give the muscles time to adapt.
Can’t I just do cardio and lose fat?
This is dangerous because too much cardio can eat away at muscle tissue. Cardio is great for your heart and overall well being. However, to maximize your calorie burning, you need muscle. Muscle is the furnace that burns body fat, continuously. So if you enjoy cardio, that’s fine, just don’t overdo it, and for that matter, don’t over do anything! If you are looking to burn fat while doing cardio, remember to keep the intensity level low, with going as high as 65% of your max. Find your max heart rate by using this formula, 220-your age=… this will give you your max, then take that number and multiply it by 65% to get your fat burning zone. This also has to do with your resting heart rate, contact us for more details.