It’s common to associate building muscle with weightlifting and fat loss with cardio-training – but by doing so you’re selling yourself short on potential results

Weightlifting can actually prove to be a very effective method for losing weight, provided you go about it in the right manner. Here is the information you need to know about why you should choose weightlifting to help with fat loss, and how to design a program to get the results you desire.

The first reason weightlifting is a good option for fat loss is because it boosts metabolic rate over both the short and long term. In the hours after an intense weightlifting session you will experience an increase in metabolic rate. What’s more, weightlifting will help you maintain your total amount of lean muscle mass, creating a permanent increase in metabolism.

Cardio-training will only cause a short rise in metabolic rate for an hour or two after the session, taking away from the overall calorie-burning benefits, compared with resistance training.

Often, overdoing cardio will actually decrease your total lean body mass, so you could see a reduction in metabolism over time, working against your fat loss efforts.

The second reason to choose weightlifting for fat loss purposes is because, while cardio may make you lose weight, weightlifting will help you lose body fat, altering your body composition.

Many individuals who just hop on the treadmill to lose the kilograms don’t end up looking much different. This is because they still have the same proportion of muscle mass to body fat – they are just “smaller”.

Weight-training will help change the way you look completely, giving the impression that you’ve replaced fat with muscle and are actually working at improving your body and changing your body composition.

Weightlifting for fat loss is a great alternative to cardio and will give you better, more visible results. So do the best of workouts: weight0training and cardio in one session.