When it comes to fitness and losing weight, many people think of cardio because it’s one of the easier options. Hopping on a treadmill or elliptical and staying there for the duration of your gym visit takes away some of the gym jitters. Trying new equipment and exercises can be nerve wracking and challenging, but it’s also a key part in losing weight and getting healthy.
Burn Calories Longer
Weight lifting is crucial to losing weight, because it allows you to burn calories for a longer time. When you take part in strength training your metabolism stays elevated for hours, possibly even a whole day, after you finish. This means that your body continues to burn calories long after you’ve finished your workout. Cardio is great for burning fat and is wonderful for you health, but its fat burning benefits stop as soon as you stop moving.
Tone Your Body
Some people worry about weight training making them “bulky”. However, it takes a lot of extra work and dietary changes to build bulky muscles like body builders have. It is possible to simply tone your body and increase your strength without putting on heaving muscles. It also helps to deal with excess skin left behind when you lose fat. Slow motion strength training is a great option for this, because it allows your muscles to really benefit from every movement and have the necessary contraction and release that is needed to build strength and definition.
Become Stronger
So many things in life become easier when you become stronger. Picking up your children and swinging them around, lifting at work, and moving furniture when you move all require muscle strength. Slow motion strength training helps you to build stronger muscles that can perform all of these tasks and more with more ease. This is also good for you as you age, because a stronger and fitter body will age better and move easier as it gets older.
You don’t have to be afraid of weight lifting. Usually the exercises are simple and to the point, so once you’ve done them once you don’t have to relearn them. Also, you won’t get bulky unless you want to and you can even work with a personal trainer to sculpt your body in a way that you feel is right for you.