Exercise has many known benefits.
These benefits include stress reduction, improved mental health, physical fitness gains and major health improvements. However, one area that is often overlooked is the way that exercise can boost your metabolism.
Free Download: 9 Strength Training Myths For WomenHealth Benefits When You Boost Your Metabolism
Many health benefits come from increased metabolism resulting from exercise.
Obvious and visible benefits include weight loss and improved body composition. But many of the health benefits are invisible. These include improved good cholesterol, and a decrease in bad cholesterol, and decreased blood pressure.
According to a study, “fatty acids and ketone body substrates, key fuels used by exercising muscle, were dramatically decreased in plasma in response to increased aerobic fitness.“ (Effect of Chronic Exercise in Healthy Young Male Adults: A Metabolomic Analysis, Yen Chin Koay).
This means not only are you burning more calories at rest thanks to an improved metabolic rate, but you are also a healthier human being. This is a huge gain from simply increasing your metabolism through exercise.
Resting Metabolic Rate
According to a study, (Strength training increases resting metabolic rate and norepinephrine levels in healthy 50- to 65-yr-old men, R Pratley, et Al.), strength training and building muscle mass can increase your resting metabolic rate.
This means that a person with increased muscle mass from strength training may burn more calories at rest than an untrained person. You’ll be able to eat more without gaining weight, or you may be able to lose more weight at a faster rate than a person with less muscle mass.
This means your body is a more efficient machine at rest thanks to the exercise. The greater the muscle mass the greater increase to your resting metabolic rate.
Fuel Sources
When you exercise, your body uses up the fuel it has stored in your muscles. This fuel is glucose. It takes energy to replenish the glucose in those muscles, so exercising burns energy (calories) in the muscles as well as the energy that your body uses to refuel the muscles.
The duration of your exercise decides which fuel source will be used. With exercises like cardio or long-distance, steady-state workouts you use little glucose. Instead, the fuel source your body relies on the fatty acids (fat).
If your body isn’t relying heavily on glucose to fuel you there is little need to replenish large amounts of glucose after a workout. This is why low-intensity cardio, endurance training, and steady-state cardio don’t directly raise your resting metabolic rate or increase metabolism.
Strength training, high-intensity interval training, and short-duration activities rely more on glucose for a fuel source. Fatty acids are not the primary source in a shorter duration strength-style workout. After a long-distance endurance style training session, glucose and energy don’t need to be restored.
Shorter duration sessions of strength training or interval training require this restoration of glucose after completion. This has an indirect effect on increasing your resting metabolic rate and therefore will boost your metabolism.
It Boils Down To This
A good balance of short-duration intense training, strength training and long-distance steady-state cardio type training is a great option for most. You can’t rely solely on metabolic adaption as the primary tool to enhance or boost your metabolism. If you do incorporate some of these methods into your training you will likely experience the benefits.
Add in a quality nutrition program and a well-planned training program and you’ll enjoy health and fitness-related benefits thanks to your exercise-induced metabolism gains.
Free Download: The Myths About Strength Training For Women
Women can, and should, lift weights. It builds strength, helps you lose weight, improves sleep, sex, and so much more.
Whether you use free weights, weight machines or resistance bands, the point is to mix strength training into your workout schedule to get the body you desire or the body back that you once had. Conflicting information is everywhere about strength training for women. To get the real truth, download my free report Strength Training Myths For Women.
