No Muscle, No Gain

They say “no pain no gain”, well there is a lot to be said for “no muscle no gain”.

As a fitness expert, I worked in the fitness game for a long time and I’m a big advocate of building muscle. Be it losing inches to look great or to enhance sporting performance, muscle gain is critical.

I have clients who repeat the same old mantra, “I want to be toned but I don’t want to build muscle”. This may seem like a reasonable request for many of you out there, but the fact of the matter is, muscle toning is building muscle.

Another one common mantra is, “I have tried weights, but I only get small gains on the scales”. If your goal is to drop an inch or two of belly fat, get rid of those bingo wings, fit back into those jeans you love or even run a faster 10km, resistance training and building muscle is key.

At Target Fit I often explain it to clients like this:

Your body’s fat burning machine is its muscle, the more muscle you can build the more fat tissue you can burn. Muscle is live functional tissue; it needs energy to survive where as fat is just the storage of fuel for the body in times of need. The dreaded weighing scales only tells a fraction of the story when we look at body composition

These two images show that muscle tissue is denser than fat tissue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You might be thinking from looking at these two images “Ok, so if I build more muscle I will look better, but how will this help me run a faster 10km?”

The answer is simple, I have already mentioned how muscle is functional tissue and it is this functional tissue that allows us to move, swim, jump, run etc and fat is a fuel storage that weighs us down.

Case Study

To simplify this point, take two individuals, A and B.
Individual A weighs 100kg with 25% body fat (25kg fat mass). This individual runs 10km in 60 minutes.

Individual B also weighs 100kg, has the same genetics, gender, age and has done the same aerobic training as individual A but has 15% body fat (15kg fat mass) because they have taken part in a resistance training programme, individual B completes the 10km in 54 minutes.

Why is this?

The answer is simple, individual B has 10kg more functional muscle which allows them to run a quicker 10km and has 10kg less storage weight (fat) to carry along the 10km run.

The next time you go for a 10km run, fill a ruck sack with 10kg and see can you beat your best time. You know the answer already; the same principle applies to the extra fat storage when we run.

So there you have it: the more muscle you can build the more body fat you can burn, the better you will look, perform and the healthier you will be…and don’t worry too much about the scales as it only tells a fraction of the story.

Please contact Target Fit today if you need personal training advice.