Strength Training for Weight Loss and Heart Health

Slash fat while you strengthen your heart!

By Elena Rover
From Reader's Digest
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Strength Training Benefits
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You can ease up on the cardio yet wind up more fit!
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Give your running shoes a rest: Adding strength training to your exercise routine looks like the best way to slash fat and strengthen the heart. In a new study, one group of volunteers walked or jogged five times a week, while another replaced two workouts with strength sessions (three sets of each resistance move).
Those who strength-trained did 30 percent less aerobic exercise -- yet performed 7 percent better on tests of maximum aerobic capacity. They also lost 2 percent of their body fat; the volunteers who simply walked or jogged lost none.

Strength training increases muscle mass, which burns fat faster -- and the pudge it melted was mostly the heart-risky abdominal kind. What this means: If you add some basic strength training, you can ease up on the cardio yet wind up more fit -- and your body will look better too.

More on Heart Disease
From Reader's Digest - March 2009
 
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You are right. Recently I realized that I’ve hit a plateau and changed my exercising routine adding more strength training. This works really great and now I drop a few pounds! Here is one more good article explaining why aerobic training is not necessary for weight loss: http://schoolofyourbody.com/?p=82

By velena, on 03/01/2009

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