Strength Training Home Gym

Which is better? Strength is like lunges, situps, squats…things i do by myself.
or weight training like leg curls and abdominal crunches with weights at the gym.

and also should i do the bike or tredmil….

Answer:   The fastest way to lose weight is to build muscle.  Each pound of lean muscle burns about 40-50 calories per day at a resting metabolic rate.  10 lbs of muscle will burn 400-500 calories.  20 lbs of muscle will burn 800-1000 calories.  The fat will melt off and you’ll end up with a lean body.     

To build muscle you want to do high intensity resistance training.  High intensity does not mean spending hours in a gym getting an intense workout and it doesn’t mean working out really hard so the sweat’s dripping down your face.  It means doing roughly 8-10 reps with a level of resistance that challenges you enough so that it takes a significant amount of effort to complete that last rep.  Then rest for about 30 seconds and move to the next muscle group.  Workout out every major muscle group like this 3x times a week like Mon, Wed, Fri and then rest two days.  You do not have to spend hours in a gym to effectively build muscle and you don’t even need weights.

I highly recommend Bodylasticd resistance bands.  They are considerably cheaper than weights, not to mention portable.  If you get the kind with the clips on the end, you can easily customize the resistance level as your body adapts.  That will prevent you from plateauing and will keep your muscles challenged.

Here is some more information on where you can get free muscle building workouts.  There are new workouts posted Mon-Fri.  There are also toning, cardio, pilates, workouts for teens and sports specific workouts.  All of it’s free.