Whilst chatting with a client this week about how we are going to progress her personal training schedule, she mentioned that she has been doing some additional ‘fat-burning’ exercises that she had read about in a magazine.  Upon questioning her further, I soon realised that a few truths about effective exercise needed to be straightened out.  All too often we are told in order to lose fat we have to exercise in the ‘fat-burning zone.’  Whilst it sounds completely logical, there is a much better way to lose fat. 

The harder the intensity of exercise, the more fat you will burn due to different energy pathways.

What concerned me even more though, was the fact that female readers of the article were being told to exercise without any additional weight and do lots of repetitions (up to 100!) in order to avoid ‘bulking-up.’  If you can do up to 100 repetitions of a certain exercise, then it will not be very effective!

Here are some physiological facts:

• Males produce the hormone testosterone in varying amounts, some more than others.
• Women produce much less testosterone. 
• In order to build muscle bulk you need large amounts of the muscle-building hormone, testosterone. 

For anyone who wishes to build muscle bulk they need to train extremely hard and heavy, possibly even twice-a-day.  The majority fail to do this, especially females due to physiology.  Your nutrition also has to be optimal.

So girls, despite being told to avoid the weights because you’ll get big, it is very very difficult for females to build muscle bulk.

However, strength training is a very important part of any exercise schedule and whilst it is difficult for females to build muscle bulk, it is still very important to keep muscles strong and toned which in turn will burn more fat in the long-term by keeping the metabolism raised.