How can flexibility help one lose body fat?  It all goes hand in hand.  Everyone knows resistance training is important to an exercise program.  Weight training increases muscle mass, and increased muscle mass helps to raise metabolism, burning fat even while you are at rest—which makes it the best exercise to lose weight.  Flexibility, in turn can increase your ability to make muscle.  If your muscles are more flexible, you can lift more, recover faster, and make the muscles work more effectively.

Think of it this way, when you stretch the muscle, it basically grows.  When you weight train, the muscles get bigger, but can only get so big because they are a certain size, lengthwise. When you add flexibility training into your workout, you are giving the muscles an avenue to lengthen, which in turn allows them to get bigger when you weight train.

Of course, this growth is dependent upon when you stretch.  You need to always remember to stretch warm muscles, muscles that are pumped up with blood.   This warmth allows them to stretch more, longer, and keeps you from injuring yourself.  If you freeze a rubber band and try to stretch, it will pop.  Now, you may not actually pop your muscles if you stretch cold, but you can injure yourself.  So, do a bit of a warm up, even if it is easy Yoga moves that you do go all out on, and then begin your flexibility practice.

Yoga is great for this. Yoga provides stretching for flexibility, and it also uses your body weight to strengthen your muscles, so you get a full body workout.  Do Yoga after a cardio or weight training session and really begin to see results quickly.

Weight lifting belts work by increasing the inter-abdominal pressure in your body.  This gives your back more support while you’re doing certain exercises, usually ones that can strain your lower back such as squats or dead lifts.  By giving your back more support, you can focus more on using your bigger muscles to lift heavier weights.

This is particularly useful if you’re trying to set new personal bests.  Many times what stops someone from lifting a heavier weight is a little bit of fear that they won’t be able to attempt it or will injure themselves.  By putting on a weightlifting belt, you can allay yourself of some of these fears, feel stronger and lift the weight better.  Make sure you’ve got proper form before you do this though.  A belt is not a way to get around using the right technique.

Another time that belts are great to use is when you’re going through a particularly heavy lifting session.  When you’re doing this the weaker muscles in your abs and lower back will most likely get tired much sooner than the muscles in your chest and upper back.  You can help to give yourself more time to train by hitting a belt so the smaller muscle groups aren’t worked as hard.

Wearing a weight lifting belt can help you get bigger and stronger with your workouts.  For help on choosing the right one and also on picking out gloves and straps, visit Weight Lifting Belts & More.

• 1. Increased muscular strength – Your muscles will get stronger and that will help you in return to build a strong an healthy body
• 2. Burn body fat – Weight training helps you burn body fat, making you looking leaner in no time
• Increased lean muscle mass – Regular weight training will also increase your lean muscle mass, with have many health benefits (like the next point)
• 3. Higher metabolism – Increasing your lean muscle mass requires lots of calories. This in turn increases your metabolism that you even burn calories in your sleep.
• 4. Protects against diseases – Women who weight train have a much lower risk of osteoporosis and weigh training also increases your chance of contracting other disease by keeping your body strong
• 5. Make you look and feel great – You will be feeling better from all the endorphins and you will start looking better by the increased lean muscle mass.
• 6. Improves your mood – When you exercise your body are on a natural high (caused by the endorphins). When you take this good vibe with you into your day, you are bound to be in a better mood than when you didn’t weight train.
• 7. Decrease your risk of anxiety and depression – Regular exercise decreases your risk of anxiety and depression – because regular exercise is such a good stress reliever.
• 8. Dumbbells are inexpensive, portable and will last a long time – You only need to invest once, as dumbbells last a long time and you can also take it with you wherever you go.
• 9. Adjustable dumbbells – If you buy adjustable dumbells you will only need one pair, because of it being able to change weight loads with the switch of an dial or with manual operation.

Not that you are aware of the many benefits of weight training, your misconceptions of weight training are hopefully out of the way. And you are on your way of building a strong and lean body. Just remember that what you eat also have an influence on your body fat percentage. So stick to healthy foods, watch your portion sizes and snack on pure protein bars. But if you start training with weights and you watch what you eat, you will become leaner in no time.

The ideal exercise regimen for weight training for cyclists ideally includes simple exercises which can be done at home or on the bike itself (push ups, crunches, bike training), and a more traditional regimen, which includes exercise equipment and free weights. This latter program could/should include: upright rowing, pull ups, squats, bent over rowing, and step ups on a platform with a weight on the shoulder. Lower weights with more reps is recommended by most weight trainers (but not too many–more than 50 reps is pushing it). To decrease the possibility of injury, it is also recommended that you do higher weights with fewer reps in the winter, then shift in the spring to 50% maximum weight, with, for example, 3 sets at 25 reps, or 2 sets of 50 reps at 25% max. weight. Doing the traditional regimen in combination with the simple exercises 3 times a week is ideal.

Another point to mention is the use of proper cycling shoes (or mountain bike cycling shoes, if you’re doing off-road cycling) when training on your bike. This increases the benefit you receive when pedaling, if they are the lock-in type cycling shoes, where the lifting aspect during RPM training is essential. It’s also a matter of having the proper outfitting for the sport, as well as weight training for cyclists, of course, where reduction of injury caused by catching a shoelace in the cogs is eliminated. Have fun, and happy cycling!

The pre-workout stretching routine is an especially vital part of the program.  It requires about thirty seconds of good stretching to get an adequate stretch. Along with a stretching routine, a very light pre-workout cardio exercise such as rowing or running is a very good way to initiate blood flow to the muscles and ligaments. This will increase the inflow of nutrients and oxygen to the muscles and tendons and gets them ready for the workout exercises. These aerobic exercises will also help in stretching the ligaments and tendons.

During the work-out program it is helpful to have alongside another training partner to assist whilst using the weights. This training or spot partner, can aid in the lifting of the weights where no more repetitions can be achieved. There is much debate around whether a long time between each exercise to reduce injury. It has been recommended that the best duration of time to spend between sets is somewhere between 90 to 120 seconds.

The post workout routine is also a particularly important area to focus upon in injury prevention. This is a particularly valuable time in which to perform a stretching routine. Post workout nutrition is also extremely important to provide the ligaments, tendons and muscles with optimal supplies of protein, glucose and nutrients to efficiently repair all the damage to the muscle cells. It is during this time when muscle hypertrophy and increases in growth and muscularity occurs. The flow of nutrients to the ligaments and tendons which will also increase the strength of them over the long term and significantly lower the risk of damage and injury.

It is no surprise that more and more people are starting to take up bodybuilding or programs like those from Vince Delmonte, and weight training as we see many pictures nowadays and videos of fit healthy looking people. As many more people take up the sport  the incidence of injury is rising. The advice explained in this article should help you to lower the risk of injury.