The benefits of weight training are numerous, and they’re pretty nice benefits too. And while weight training – also known as resistance training – is becoming more popular these days, there are still lots of people who haven’t given it a good go, women especially! And I’m not talking about just bench press or squats – resistance training also includes free weights (barbells and dumbells) as well as resistance machines and plate-loaded machines, most of which you will find upstairs at Exodus. Perhaps you’ve never tried weight training, or perhaps it has been a while since the last time you did. Either way, here is a quick-fire list of the main benefits of weight training to get you interested and/or back into it!

1. Tone is an increase in muscle size coupled with a decrease in body fat – it’s as simple as that. The fastest and most effective way of building muscle is by doing weight training. And for the ladies, lifting weights won’t make you bulky or manly-looking – but it will increase your tone and definition. Body weight exercises can only get you so far before you need to take it up a notch with weight training. Doing cardio by itself will get you lean, but it’s the weights that build definition.
2. Weight training is essential for anyone wanting to increase their strength – whether that’s overall strength or for a particular muscle or muscle group. You will see your strength in the gym go up as well as your strength in normal, everyday tasks. The chest fly machine will make your hugs stronger, for example. And not only do your muscles get stronger – so do your joints, tendons and ligaments – which means less chance of injury. Resistance training decreases your chance of injury, rather than increasing it.
3. Weight training burns calories and boosts your metabolism! Not only will you burn calories while you actually lift weights, but your metabolism increases for up to 24 hours after your session. This means that you will burn more calories than normal even when you are relaxing later that same day. Not to mention the more muscle/tone that you have, the more calories you burn on an everyday basis – it is absolutely true that muscle burns more calories than fat.
4. Weight training increases your bone density, your posture and your flexibility. The greater your bone density, the stronger your bones are – this is critical for older people and those who do high-impact sports. Good posture is essential for anyone who sits at a desk all day long, and anyone with a bad back. And flexibility is just good for everyone.
5. Weight training increases your mental toughness. Lifting weights is all about pushing your boundaries and going as hard as you can. You learn to always push yourself, to always strive for one more rep or one more set. Through hard work you overcome challenges and reach your goals. You learn to never give up and to believe in your ability. You personally see that hard work equals results. Every single one of these things can be directly applied to other areas of your life with great success.
6. Weight training makes you feel better about yourself. Not only does it increase your physical appearance and arguably how attractive you are – more importantly, it increases your confidence. When you know you’ve put in the work at the gym, and you know you look good, you feel good. It doesn’t hurt that resistance training releases endorphins! Not only that – lifting weights reduces stress, anxiety and depression. It’s hard to feel down after a good weights session!

In summary, weight training is a healthy addiction that most people can benefit from. The benefits of resistance training are endless, and I can list them here all day long – but you need to actually give weight training a try to see for yourself. Get out of your comfort zone and experience something new. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Contact Kieran now for a FREE consultation, or if you have any questions about where to begin.

Kieran@gobeyondtraining.co.nz

Nutrition and Body Composition

Eating healthy food is good for you, but it does not necessarily equate to weight loss. Let’s take a moment to clear up any misconceptions about how weight loss and weight gain occur, and look at the most effective and sustainable way to keep you on track.

Weight loss and weight gain are all about energy in vs energy out. Every day your body needs a certain amount of energy from food to function, and to maintain your current body composition and weight. When you eat over this amount you gain weight, and when you eat under this amount you lose weight – it’s that simple. We call these states a caloric surplus and a caloric deficit, respectively, because we usually measure food energy in calories. If you consume more calories than your body needs, the surplus energy has to go somewhere – and your body will store it as either muscle or fat. Likewise, if you expend or burn more calories than you consume, the extra calories need to come from somewhere – and your body will burn either muscle or fat to provide you with the energy that you need.

It doesn’t matter where the food calories come from – you can gain weight eating only chicken and broccoli, and you can lose weight eating only fast food. The quality of your food will, however, dictate how well you feel on a daily basis. While you might lose weight eating only a meal of fish n chips once a day, you won’t feel particularly spritely. Similarly, you will feel great eating salads all day, but eating them in excess will still lead to weight gain.

Fitness media will often try to drive home that eating healthy foods means weight loss, but unfortunately this is not necessarily the case. Healthy foods are certainly good for you from a nutritional standpoint, especially due to all the micronutrients in them – the vitamins and minerals – as well as generally slow-releasing energy and good fibre content. Healthy foods are also generally low in fat, and low fat food means relatively low calorie food, because every gram of fat generates 9 calories of energy – as opposed to only 4 calories of energy per gram of protein or carbohydrate. Avocados, for example, are a popular ‘healthy’ food – because they are full of good fats – but what people don’t realise is that means they are incredibly high in calories! When it comes to food and weight loss, we need to look not only at the nutritional quality of our food, but at the energy value as well. The most effective way to track how much energy you’re consuming is by tracking food calories – and despite all the hoodoo, it’s not as difficult as you might think.

Cardio is also a great tool for weight loss because it puts you further into a caloric deficit by expending more energy. It is important to understand that just like eating healthy food, cardio does not magically make you lose weight either – you can do cardio every single day, but if you’re still consuming more food than your body needs daily to function and to do the cardio, you won’t see any results. In fact, you might even put on weight. Energy in, energy out.

With all of that said, let’s not forget that getting into shape is a lifestyle choice – not a quick fix. Therefore your daily diet needs to be sustainable – it’s hard to maintain eating super healthy foods for weeks on end. This is where flexible dieting comes in. If we aim for approximately 80-90% of our food to be from healthy sources – vegetables, fruit, grains, lean protein etc. – and only 10-20% from less healthy foods/treats, we are far more likely to adhere to the plan and reach whatever our goal is. Approaching nutrition in this way means you don’t have to worry about ‘cheat’ meals either. Flexibility is crucial to keeping us on track (and keeping us sane!).

In summary, changing your body composition is all about energy in and energy out – not about how healthily you’re eating. However, the quality of food you’re eating will influence how well you feel in general. Both aspects of nutrition are important when it comes to weight loss, and finding the balance between the two is key.

My client Brett is a perfect example. After calculating his ideal food calories and macronutrients per day to lose weight, I worked with him to get his nutrition on point – and the results speak for themselves:

Contact Kieran at Kieran@gobeyondtraining.co.nz now for a FREE consultation, or to enquire about a personalised nutrition plan.