Muscle Building & Weight Loss

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, only 21 percent of women strength-train two or more times a week. The other 79 percent may not realize that using weights to increase muscle mass is one of the best ways to boost your metabolism, lose weight and keep the weight off permanently.

Considerations

• Contrary to what some women believe, strength training won't turn you into the Incredible Hulk. If anything, it'll make you smaller as you replace jiggly fat with compact muscle. Although cardio exercise like running and walking burns more calories than strength training during a 30-minute session, pumping iron slashes more calories overall. A study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that women who completed an hourlong strength-training workout burned an average of 100 more calories in the 24 hours afterward. That's 15,600 calories a year for three sessions a week, or about four-and-a-half pounds of fat. According to Dale Schoeller, a nutrition researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, iron-pumping will also make 85 percent of the weight you lose take the form of unhealthy fat instead of muscle, bone and water, a problem common with dieting alone.

Tips

• Joe Dowdell, founder and co-owner of the New York City gym Peak Performance, recommends beginning with three strength-training sessions each week. For the greatest calorie burn, try total-body workouts that target your arms, abs, legs and back. Include activities that work different muscle groups at one time, such as squats, which call on muscles in both the front and back of your legs, as opposed to leg extensions, which isolate the quads. Warm up before each session with five to 10 minutes of stretching or gentle aerobic activity such as brisk walking. To give your muscles time to recover, rest a full day between exercising each specific muscle group. Stop any exercise if you feel sharp pain.

  In general, perform three sets of 10 to 12 reps for each exercise with a weight heavy enough that by your last rep you find you can't do another without compromising your form. For additional muscle building, William Kraemer, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut, suggests alternating moderate-intensity workouts of eight to 10 reps with lighter-weight sets of 12 to 15 reps and harder-weight sets of three to five reps. If you simply don't have a lot of time, breaking up a workout into 10-minute sessions is almost as good as doing it all at once.

  Consume lean protein before and after workouts, about 10 to 20 grams, to increase the muscle-building effect of training. This is the equivalent of about one or two glasses of milk.

Types of Strength Training

• Body-weight exercises require little or no equipment, using your own weight in activities like push-ups, pull-ups, abdominal crunches and leg squats.

  Resistance tubing, lightweight springy bands that offer resistance when stretched, are available from any sporting goods store.

  Free weights like barbells and dumbbells can be found at department stores fairly inexpensively, or you can make your own using plastic soft drink bottles filled with water or sand.

  Weight machines are the staple of fitness centers, although many home gyms are available, ranging in price from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.