What Is Your Weight In Muscle?

By Molly Hinges


You may have heard that muscles weigh more than fat. Many people notice a small weight gain when they begin lifting weights consistently. For about 6 months, you gain 1 pound of muscle per month if you lift weights 2-3 times a week. As you begin to reach your genetic potential, the rate increase slows down. Because you're reaching your genetic potential, your progression will lessen the longer you lift even though at the beginning you've made a lot of progress on weight progression.
You'll gain extra pounds from weight training but you shouldn't be alarmed because it's well worth the effort. Research shows that your resting metabolic rate is increased by about 7% for every 3 pounds of muscle you build. For example, if your body burns 1,200 calories per day (not counting exercise or any other movement), you would burn an extra 84 calories per day with those 3 extra pounds of muscle.

Outgrowing 2-3 dumbbell weights is difficult for many women because they're afraid that increasing it would bulk them up. You can do a maintenance program with 5 pound weights if you are happy with the strength and appearance of your muscles. However, if you want more strength, you could progress to 8 or 10 pound weights and still not bulk up. Your muscle size can be increased by using heavier weights but getting bulky is unlikely. Women don't naturally have enough of the hormone, testosterone, required to build huge muscles, and even if you could bulk up, you'd have to use significantly heavier weights.

Another option to tone muscle is
Outgrowing 2-3 dumbbell weights is difficult for many women because they're afraid that increasing it would bulk them up. You can do a maintenance program with 5 pound weights if you are happy with the strength and appearance of your muscles. However, if you want more strength, you could progress to 8 or 10 pound weights and still not bulk up. Your muscle size can be increased by using heavier weights but getting bulky is unlikely. Women don't naturally have enough of the hormone, testosterone, required to build huge muscles, and even if you could bulk up, you'd have to use significantly heavier weights.

Another option to tone muscle is to increase your repetitions instead of increasing weight. Strength and endurance can increase without the muscle size increasing muscle tone will be developed with a high repetition/light weight program.

When lifting weights, you shouldn't just go through the motion. Described as squeezing is the contraction of the muscles that you need to be focused on. Squeeze or contract the muscle you're working on as you're lifting. If you squeeze the muscle on the lift, you'll get a lot more benefit for your efforts rather than just lowering and raising the weight and not focusing on the muscle.




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