How often should I strength train?

Aim for 2-3 times per week. Your muscles take 48 hours to recover after a strength training workout. So, you would never want to strength train on back to back days, unless you were working different muscles. An exception of this rule would be if you are rehabbing from an injury or just working range of motion or using very light weights where you aren’t taking the muscles to fatigue. Abdominals can also be worked daily vs. every other day.

What burns more calories – cardio or strength training?

Cardio typically burns more calories during the workout, however, strength training burns more calories afterward and in the long run.

First of all, after strength training your body has a higher after burn (or rate of calories burned when you are done). During strength training your cells get out of equilibrium. The process of bringing them back in balance burns mega calories.

When you strength train it’s like putting your cells in a blender. The process of coming back in balance burns more calories than simply recovering from a cardio workout.

Also, and even more importantly, strength training builds muscle cells. These muscle cells are mini engines for calorie burning. So, when you build muscle cells, you are burning extra calories while working out AND while at rest.

Even a very active person exercising for 1 hour per day may spend 23 hours at rest. So, it’s important that you are not only burning calories while exercising, but also while you are sleeping, sitting at your desk, or relaxing on the couch.

Can I get too bulky from strength training?

Most females do not have the hormone levels to get especially bulky from training. When you see female body builders, they usually take supplements and have specialized training and diets. Normal, healthy strength training will not cause you to bulk up. Doing higher reps at lower weights or performing functional training (using balls, bands, etc.) ensure that you are training for tone vs. bulk.

How many sets and reps should you do?

There are thousands of ways to design a strength training program, but in general, I have my clients do 2 sets of 12-15 reps. I find that is the best combination for time and results.

What are the best strength training exercises?

I like any of them that use your full body weight and work ranges of motions that you use in your daily life. Another term for that is functional training.

The most effective exercises are those old fashioned ones that have been around the longest: lunge, squat, pushup, pull up, bicycle abs. It may sound boring, but they really do work. To make them more fun, I like to use a BOSU balance trainer (half ball) or Stability Ball. When you use these different pieces of equipment, you are working more muscle groups.

So, for instance, if you were doing a standing Bicep Curl, you may be working 10 muscle groups. However, when you do the same exercise standing on a BOSU balance trainer, you work 100 different muscle groups.

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