Fitness Tip - Preserve your muscles

Preserve your muscle

Here's some facts that you may or may not know about your muscles and why it's important to use and preserve them;

1. Muscles require energy & burn calories even when not in use, so they increase your metabolism and help burn fat.

2. Muscles support your skeleton. Depletion of muscle over time due to old age and inactivity causes poor posture because your body can no longer support it's own weight.

3. Regular resistance training with weights helps to preserve muscle mass.

4. The more you use a muscle, the stronger & more toned it gets.

5. Muscle tone is when the muscle is in a state of readiness.

6. Muscle does not turn to fat if it's not used. Fat and muscle are 2 totally different types of tissue.

7. Yo yo fad dieting causes muscle loss due to the starvation response. Basically your body eats it's self for energy because you are depriving it of the right amount of fuel to function.

8. Women will not develop huge muscles when training with weights, instead they will increase their metabolism, burn more fat and tone up.

9. Muscle helps to improve balance and posture, hence preventing injury and joint related problems in old age

10. You only need to include 2 resistance training sessions per week to get all these benefits. Resistance training should become part of a well balanced training program that includes CV exercise, flexibility and a healthy diet.