Strength Training For a Youthful, Slim Body

The basis premise is you provide a challenge to your muscles, and your muscles react by getting stronger. When you challenge the muscles on a regular basis; you create a firmer, more attractive body, significant functional benefits, more resistance to disease and improvements in overall health and wellbeing.

In fact, many people are beginning to realize that a complete program of health and fitness is . . . well, incomplete without at least 50 - 60% of strength training built into it. Strength training not only increases strength but also your body's power and endurance, and reduces the risk of injury to muscles, ligaments and tendons during everyday activities and especially while doing sports. The best part is you see results very quickly, you get stronger by the second week, and in just a couple of months you can double or triple your strength.

Strength training is also a key ingredient in any fat loss plan. How? By toning and firming muscle tissue the body's metabolism is raised. This is the rate that your body burns fuel. This means that you have an increased rate of calorie burning every minute of every day even while sleeping.

This is much more important than you might think. When people lose weight by reducing food intake alone, a futile cycle can develop. They lose weight so quickly that their body shifts into diet shock or starvation mode that is; it tries to conserve as much energy as it can. The rate at which you burn calories (your metabolic rate) then slows down to a crawl, so you have to cut calories even more to continue losing weight. And once you start eating normally again, your body stores each one of those precious calories in the form of fat. But with strength training, you can increase your metabolic rate and have a much easier time losing excess body fat.

By strength training you are not only burning off the excess saggy, mushy bits you are strengthening, toning, lifting and firming muscle tissue. This means your body shape will improve and you will look so much better and more youthful. In fact, don't be surprised if you can fit into clothes that you haven't been able to wear for awhile because they were too tight. This can happen without any change in the bathroom scales.

Strength training is particularly helpful for older people who want to stay slim and trim. Metabolism and muscle mass definitely decline after the age of 30 years, which makes it tougher to keep off excess weight.

Question - When can I quit my strength training routine?

The answer to that question is easy: never, not if you want to maintain the benefits you have achieved. Unfortunately, as soon as you stop strength training, your body will return to its former fitness levels within a couple of weeks.

But why would you stop completely? Once you start, you're going to look and feel so fantastic, why would you even think of it?