When it comes to fat loss, calorie restriction and excessive cardio is what comes to most people’s minds. Calorie reduction is usually the main factor that gets hammered home. This is accurate, however, we wanted to share with you another aspect that will help with your fat loss journey.
This article will help explain why adding muscle mass by means of hypertrophy (muscle gain) training greatly aids in the efficiency of fat loss.
So, What is Hypertrophy?
Muscle hypertrophy is the increase in muscle mass that is achieved by providing the muscle fibres with an overload of tension either from intensity (heavy weights) or through (fatigue) volume of tension. Every time we expose the muscle to a training high in intensity or volume of tension, it grows in order to better prepare the body for the following training.
The increase in muscle mass from a hypertrophy program makes fat loss so much more efficient. The two factors are higher basal metabolic rate as well as fuel utilisation at rest.
Higher Basal Metabolic Rate
Studies have shown that a pound of muscle uses an additional 75-150 calories a day. The more muscle mass you carry, the higher your basal metabolic rate (BMR) will be. This inefficiency is what causes you to burn more calories!
With additional muscle mass, you will burn more calories than someone who has a smaller cross sectional area of muscles. In fact, this factor also applies in everyday movements on top of your training.
Fuel Utilisation at Rest
A hypertrophy training program that focuses on building muscle tissue demands a lot of carbohydrates as compared to cardio (which mainly relies mainly on fats). Sets that are higher in repetitions between the 8-15 rep zone with short rest times (60s at most) helps improve insulin sensitivity and carbohydrate uptake post training.
Hypertrophy training also signals to the body to utilise fat stores post training. This means that carbohydrates ingested after training replenishes the muscle glycogen stores and will not be stored as fat. This is all thanks to the amount of carbohydrates that had been cycled through the entire training session.
Ultimately, we can see how the process of hypertrophy training as well as the effects of putting on muscle mass contribute significantly to an effective fat loss phase. It’s important to remember that there is more to your fat loss journey than just calorie deficit and endless aerobic work!
Reach out to us if you need help in designing a hypertrophy program to cater to your needs and current lifestyle for fat loss. We would love to help you piece together a deliberate program that is customised specifically – for you.