Lifting Cattle
There is an old proverb about a man who begins lifting and carrying a calf when it’s born. Everyday he lifts and carries the calf around until eventually he is lifting and carrying a full grown cow. Now we all know that is just a bit far fetched but it does illustrate a process. To become stronger you must lift progressively heavier weights. A simple process but there are a lot of details that must be considered to make it work the way you want it to.
Usually someone decides to lift weights, run, bike or any other physical activity to lose weight or get in better shape. Weight training is certainly a part of it but lifting cattle is not the preferred way to go about it. I’m going to address the basics of training for the purpose of losing body fat and gaining muscle. You can become thinner by eating less. You can, if you are strong enough to resist the temptation to eat, get your weight to wherever you want. You won’t necessarily be a healthier person but you will be thinner.
Muscle tissue burns calories and moves your body, so it’s desirable to build and strengthen your muscles as well as losing body fat. Then you don’t have to cut your calorie intake so much. The cow lifting shows the process but it needs to be expanded. This is the way it should work: Start with a weight that you can handle and lift it for 10 to 12 repetitions. If you really have to work for the last rep the weight is about right. Do 3 or 4 sets of those reps until the muscle you are working is exhausted. Then rest it for 48 hours. The building and strengthening happens during that rest period. The next time you lift add a pound and again work the muscle to exhaustion. Continue that process and you will have stronger, bigger muscles. Whether you weigh less and have muscle definition depends on how much and what you ate.
Now it’s important that you know muscles are composed of two types of fibers named after how they work. Slow twitch and fast twitch. You work mostly the slow twitch muscles with weight training unless you do your lifts as fast as possible. It’s easier to train all the muscle fibers with walking, running, race walking or other aerobic, now called cardio, activity. But all the fibers are not trained unless you train at different speeds. The best training for the adult athlete is a combination of long slow distance, short fast intervals of hard effort and training that combines both. You get the best of all training when you add weight or resistance training with cardio rather than just doing one or the other. A routine that works well for most is to alternate training so that you do weight training one day and aerobic or cardio training the next. Weight train 3 days a week and train aerobically 3 days a week with one day of rest from training.
Another thing you need to know is that your body uses only as much muscle fiber as it needs to move. So some of your muscle fibers are developed but only enough to do the basics. If you want to increase your endurance and strength you have to build and strengthen all the fibers so that as muscle fibers tire others can take over and carry the load or keep you moving. Strong muscles fed a healthy diet will give you amazing results. Healthy diet means real food and not chemical mixes, or highly processed food that is made up of sugar and bleached flour.
Not quite as simple as lifting a calf every day but the results you get will be much better. Exercise with intensity, eat with intelligence and you will exceed your goals.

It's not just a step, it's a start.

Dave