50 TOP TIPS FOR FAT LOSS – TIP 27

*This post may contain affiliate links. See the disclosure policy for more information.

Focus on hypertrophy

Hypertrophy (pronounced hi-PURR-trophy) describes when an organ or tissue increases in volume due to the enlargement of its component cells.

Whenever you think  weight training, the first thing that comes to mind is “GET BIG” and that’s because our industry was born from the body building industry of the 1960s & 70s.  However, getting big isn’t as easy as simply training with weights.  Just ask any scrawny gym goer, who’s been at it for years.  Unless you know what you’re doing, or working with someone who does, no amount of weight training is going to get you big.

Now while most women truly believe that if they lift weights they’ll get big the truth is they can’t because they lack sufficient quantities of the 1 vital ingredient needed to get big, testosterone.

So, what do I mean when I say focus on hypertrophy?  I mean this. Train as if you are trying to make your lean muscle bigger.  You may not get the ardonis arms of Arnie but you will grow a little.  And to all you ladies out there, if you train like you want to grow lean muscle you’ll achieve 2 things, firstly, you’ll put on a small amount of lean muscle tissue (not the gargantuic amount you think) and secondly, you’ll burn a truck load of body fat.

OK, so here’s why focussing on hypertrophy is so important if body fat loss is your goal. Lean muscle requires energy to function and the best source of energy for lean muscle to function AT REST is body fat stores.  Obviously, the more lean muscle you have the more body fat energy stores you are going to use, while doing nothing.  People often associate an increase in lean muscle with lifting more and while this is the case, if fat loss is your goal, it’s what your body does when resting that’s the key because you are resting far longer than you are training.

So next time you’re working out, is your training regime geared toward building lean muscle of simply burning calories?

That’s it for today, tomorrow we look at balancing vital hormones.