agardner
Monday, April 8, 2019 - 17:49
Losing fat from around your midsection is incredibly important to your overall health. Abdominal fat has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure, but can be difficult to reduce. If you’ve been spending hours on a cardio machine or doing thousands of crunches in an attempt to lose abdominal fat without success it’s time to add strength training to your workout repertoire.


Unfortunately, it’s impossible to spot-reduce fat from any specific part of your body.  To lose abdominal fat, you have to focus on losing overall body fat. Where you lose fat first is a product of your genetics.  Cardiovascular exercises burn calories while you’re exercising and while it’s a critical component of a healthy weight loss goal, strength training continues to raise your metabolism, allowing you to burn calories even while at rest.

How to Add Strength Training for the Best Results.

  • Hire a personal trainer. Strength training can be intimidating if you’re new to the activity.  You may not be familiar with the variety of weights or even how to properly perform a rep.  Working with a personal trainer at FitClub is the most effective way to learn proper form and to discover the moves that will help you meet your goals faster.  A personal trainer may even introduce you to a new favorite form of exercise you’ve never considered.

  • Start slowly. When you’re beginning a new strength training routine, start with a weight that is low enough for you to maintain proper form through eight to ten repetitions.  If you can’t maintain proper form, the weight is too heavy and you put yourself at risk for injury.  Focusing on your form will allow you to stay healthy while you build muscle.

  • Be consistent. Like any other activity, consistency is what brings results.  Adding weight lifting to your workout routine three times each week will allow you to build muscle, establish consistency and still allow tired muscles time to rest and repair from the prior workout.  You can easily add a strength training component at the beginning or end of your favorite cardio workout to maximize your time at FitClub.

  • Add compound movements. As you begin to build familiarity with strength training you can begin to add compound movements to your repertoire.  Compound movements are any moves that work two muscle groups at the same time.  For example, a squat with an overhead press is a compound move because both your legs and your arms are working.  Compound moves require more energy from the body and burn more calories in a shorter amount of time.  These moves should leave you feeling slightly winded at the end of your set.

  • Keep making progress. When you can maintain your form using a low weight, it’s time to increase the weight to avoid hitting a plateau.  Our bodies are incredible at adapting to the stresses we routinely place upon them. In order to keep making progress, you have to keep challenging your body.