Can You Lose Weight By Lifting Weights?‏

While there are various styles of exercise to lose weight, one which consistently gets overlooked is resistance based training.

But body fat is indeed one of the first things to go into overdrive when weight training is used consistently and properly.

In fact, resistance training has been clinically proven across many scientific research studies to be highly effective for burning body fat - even more than cardiovascular exercise!

While there are many forms of weight based training, the specific form you should be looking at for burning body fat is known as H.I.R.T.

Usually, when somebody finds out that weights do indeed eliminate body fat they run to the gym with ideas of fitness classes and hundreds of reps. That's not the case. While these classes are weights based, the resistance levels used are so low that it effectively turns into a cardio session. H.I.R.T. is based around heavy lifting.

The muscle building process which is kick-started following a weights workout is known as hypertrophy. The key factor here is that a session based around hypertrophy will use carbohydrates as it's main fuel during the workout. Not fat.

Many people blindly reject this style of training when they see carbs as the main fuel because they want to be focusing on burning fat. That is their mistake.

The whole process is known as E.P.O.C. or the after burn effect. By using carbs to fuel our hard gym work, the body then becomes very protective of our few remaining carb stores while we refuel after a workout. But it must burn something in order to help the body continue to function. That's when we switch to losing body fat!

Carbohydrates may be the main macronutrient we use while we are training, but the moment we reach the end of our workout everything begins to change. Fat is then promoted as our primary fuel - and this phenomenon, known as the after burn effect, can last for up to sixteen hours!

So how would somebody go about using this training protocol?

While the fat burning process your body endures may sound complex, the training style is certainly not. Take a look how most people use weights in your local gym and you will see how many people are missing out on potentially incredible results by taking too much rest, talking in groups between sets, and so on. That's normal gym practice.

If fat loss is your goal, though, high intensity training will trump the old bodybuilding approach every single time.

High intensity resistance training involves reducing rest periods but keeping your training hard and heavy. Pair compound lifts together and work through sets of three of four moves in one circuit. You'll get more done in your session than those taking vast rest periods after every set, and you will notice significantly greater fat loss results in the weeks which follow.

There are now numerous scientific studies which confirm the effectiveness of resistance training for fat loss. In fact, many even suggest it to be greater than cardio. If you train in a mainstream gym then there's a good chance you may never have stumbled across this information before. Use it wisely.