With strength training, you lose weight and even build muscle. We'll show you how to shed those extra pounds at the gym. Plus: How to lay the foundation for fat burning with the proper diet.
Would you like to lose weight and make your training in the gym as effective as possible? Do you have the feeling that you are hardly achieving any success with your current routine? Not anymore! Here's everything you need to know about how to best use strength training to burn fat.
To be able to share in-depth knowledge with you, we spoke to an expert who has many years of practical experience in fitness: Nima Mashagh completed his studies in sports science at the Sports University in Cologne and took part in further training courses from well-known US coaches, among others. Nima can now look back on ten years of experience as a personal trainer and has founded a gym in Hamburg specializing in personal training.
What Processes Take Place in The Body When Burning Fat?
If you don't exercise, you don't burn fat - is that true? No, that's a myth, explains expert Nima: "Contrary to most assumptions, fat burning always takes place." However, you can influence it through physical activity. The decisive factor here is the load and intensity with which you train. So you shouldn't just sit back and do something, of course, to stay in shape. "Ultimately, fat is converted into energy or ATP (adenosine triphosphate) to perform any kind of work," explains the expert. Without getting too deep into biology: by splitting the ATP molecule, energy is released that fuels your entire body. A healthy amount of good fats will help you to have more power in the gym.
What Type of Exercise is Best Quickly For Losing Weight?
When you are looking for the most effective training to lose weight, you will surely come across cardio training as a master plan again and again. According to personal trainer Nima, while it's true that you burn more fat in an hour of cardio than you do with strength training, the difference isn't all that significant. In addition, strength training gives you a very specific advantage: "You have the opportunity to build muscle through strength training." This leads to a fundamental change in the shape, with the so-called basal metabolic rate, i.e. the energy requirement in the absolute state of rest, also changing. With more muscle, you burn more calories, get into a calorie deficit faster, and can lose weight more easily. Here we show you why strength training beats any cardio training!
What exactly the optimal strength training for losing weight looks like, however, is controversial. Nima points to a recent study that compared low-rep strength training versus high-rep training in a calorie deficit. The result shows: "After 4 weeks there was no significant difference in strength, fat loss, and muscle growth".
While dieting (meaning consuming fewer calories than your body uses) doesn't build muscle as well as when you have an excess of energy, expert Nima still recommends higher rep ranges with shorter rest periods. His experience shows that adequate protein intake would produce the best fat loss results. "If you do everything right, you might even be able to build up some muscles," says the sports scientist.
Strength Training and Endurance Training – a Good Combination?
Whether you can combine both strength and cardio training into one unit depends on your previous training level. Nima: "For beginners, the division into two separate units doesn't seem to play as much of a role as it does for advanced athletes." For experienced athletes, on the other hand, he recommends separating cardio and strength from each other, i.e. doing strength training on one day and strength endurance on the other day - provided you have enough time for it. However, this could give you the best results in both areas.
Do You Lose Weight Faster By Working Out in the Gym than At Home?
The answer to this question is not quite that simple. It's not about where you do your exercises, but you should still make sure that you train as intensively as possible. "Since most people are somewhat limited in the selection of exercises and also the sequence of exercises at home, the training often becomes more one-dimensional and less demanding over time, which then reduces the results," says Nima. That means: In the gym, you have the perfect conditions to lose weight effectively. But with a bit of equipment like an exercise mat, barbell and dumbbells you can also burn fat very well in the home gym. Nima also refers to the trend sport of calisthenics, which is a type of modern gymnastics that can still be very effective with little equipment.
How Many Units Per Week do I Need to Lose Weight?
This mainly depends on the intensity with which you train and the time that you want to or can spend on the sport in everyday life. Coach Nima: "One session a week is a bit too little, with two sessions you can already achieve good results." The difference in the result between two or three weekly workouts is clearly noticeable, while it then becomes smaller and smaller as the training frequency increases. "For this reason, I recommend that most people who want to do something good for themselves, but don't want to focus their entire day on sports, train about three times a week." Of course, you can go to the gym more often if you have time. However, you should be careful to give your body enough regeneration time to grant Otherwise, you're prone to injury and all your effort could be wasted.
What Exercises Are Best Quickly for Losing Weight?
In Nima's gym, he and his colleagues work with over 300 exercises and variations. As you can see, there are many ways to lose weight. "The core is often the big lifts like deadlifts, squats, bench presses, pull-ups, and overhead presses," explains the coach. Basically, you can use these exercises as a guide and try out variations over time. Here we show you the most effective exercises to lose weight.
Regarding the intensity of the training, Nima points out: "In our studio, higher-intensity, strength-based training cycles are alternated with higher-volume, hypertrophic training cycles". In short: It is best to vary the intensity with which you train, as well as the amount of training.
Can You Lose Weight in Specific Areas?
We don't want to give you false hope and want to clear up this myth at this point. "No, the body breaks down fat globally, i.e. throughout the body, when it needs more energy than it is supplied," says the expert. So just because you're doing an abdominal exercise doesn't mean that's where you'll burn fat first. Where you lose fat first, and also where you prioritize it, varies from body to body.
What Role Does Diet Play in Burning Fat?
Losing weight is primarily a question of nutrition: "If you want to lose fat, you have to consume fewer calories than you use." You achieve the so-called calorie deficit if you cover your basal metabolic rate with nutrition. However, do not consume as many calories as you burn through sports and other exercises. "A candy bar saves about as much energy as you burn in an hour of cardio," Nima knows - is it worth it to you? A saying among bodybuilders shows how vital nutrition really is for your shape: "You can't out-train a bad diet". In other words, you can only make up for good nutrition with the best training.
According to Nima, what you should eat before and after training is a question of type. "In general, we recommend eating high protein in every meal and consuming the largest portion of carbs more post-workout," he says. As a rule of thumb, you shouldn't go to your workout full or hungry. A small protein-rich snack before the workout can't hurt. Here you will find your personalized nutrition coaching, with which you are guaranteed to reach your goals! Save 23 percent now with the code* "mein2023" and get your plan on your cell phone!
When do You see The First Success?
Understandably, you want to be rewarded for your efforts. After all, the time and sweat you put into the gym should pay off. According to the expert, it usually takes a maximum of three months before you can see the first successes. It is therefore important not to slack off, but to stick with it consistently. Even if you can't see any change after two months.
How do I Stay Motivated?
There are simple tricks for this: Of course, you can get motivation from outside by dealing with people who have achieved what you want to achieve with weight loss training. You can also let a professional trainer or a training buddy set you on fire under the weight bench. However, you create the most lasting motivation if you want to keep training from the inside out. We recommend documenting photos and scopes for this so that you can always keep an eye on your progress so far. The increasing, documented strength values can also be very motivating. Your goal should always be to make the workout routine. Once you've done that, you'll need to answer the question, " How do I stay motivated?"“ don’t even ask.
Bottom line: Losing Weight is a Matter of Discipline
If you want to lose weight, you should always keep in mind: there is no miracle cure, no recipe, and no ultimate guide for it. Losing weight, whether with strength training or cardio, always involves a lot of discipline. Nevertheless: With a protein-rich diet and a routine in the weight room and the right training plan, you can celebrate your first successes after just a few months.