Strength Training for Weight Loss

I'm sure you already know how important is strength training for weight loss if you are serious about getting lean. Strength is the most accurate indicator that muscle is preserved while being in a calorie deficit.

If you are not able to keep up at least the same workout intensity, chances are that you err in the wrong direction, so you need to make some adjustments.

It's important to note that although there is a positive correlation between muscle size and strength, how much you lift shouldn't be your sole guide when assessing visual muscularity.

This would be very simplistic because there is a great variance across the individuals, and this association is not always linear.

It depends on individual characteristics such as genetics, current training experience, development, rep-set format used, etc.

For this reason, some methods of building strength don't necessarily build much size, and conversely focusing on size is not always an efficient way to build strength.

This is due to the fact that muscle size is not determined only by the actual size of its fibers, other factors such as glycogen, water and minerals also playing an important role in this equation.

However, the “real growth”, so to speak, occurs when the muscle is stimulated to grow new contractile tissue, and this adaptation should and will determine an increase in strength.

Have you heard the maxim “train heavy or go home”? Well, this is the rationale behind it. Grasping this concept is important for understanding how to use strength training for weight loss.

Gauging accurately your strength is even more important when your goal is to get leaner. At this point you should focus on keeping the weight on the bar, and not building more apparent size.

This is not to say that it may not happen, especially if you are still far from your genetic potential.

However, keep in mind that gaining muscle and losing fat require different scenarios in terms of nutrition, hormones, etc. For this reason, you would be better off to clearly separate them.

The body can't do both of them optimally, and you would get less than stellar results by trying to kill two birds with the same stone.

So forget about pump training and all that jazz when you are in a calorie deficit. Wanting to see how many workouts you can endure is a great way to overtrain, so you should do strictly what is required.

And what is required for holding onto your lean mass may be less than you think.

Logically, the harder you train, the less training (volume and frequency) you need to stimulate strength increase and muscular growth.

By the same token, when it comes to dieting, even less training is needed to maintain your lean mass if you have the discipline to maintain a high level of intensity.

To state the obvious, there is a relative difference in how difficultness is perceived among the various exercises. Taken to the same level of intensity, a set of squats is much more demanding than a set of curls, for example.

The biggest exercises have a severe systemic effect in addition to causing local muscular fatigue, and this is a great stimulus for overall growth. (As the adage goes, the best exercise for biceps is doing squats.)

Besides their potential to stimulate the body to keep/increase its lean mass, the big exercises are great for mobilizing and subsequently burning body fat.

(A bigger stressor causes a greater secretion of catecholamines, which in turn have a bigger impact on hormone-sensitive lipase.)

As a caveat, your sets should be hard enough, but you should stop close to positive failure. Brutally hard training is not necessary, especially when dieting because your recovery capacity is reduced.

So forget about static holds, negative training, strongest range reps, etc. (I wouldn't recommend these techniques even if you were to adjust your nutrition for gaining muscle.)

Now, my friend, that you realize how critical is strength training for weight loss, don't go overboard.

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