SSG Charles Williams
Benefits of Building Muscle
When it comes to physical fitness this is a busy time of year for members of the Missouri National Guard, which makes recovery more important than ever. Right now I know everyone is hitting the gym hard to get ready for the October APFT and everyone is also participating in the MOGUARD Fitness Multi-Challenge 2018. If you are not doing both of these consider this your notice.
This week’s Fitness Tip: This week I wanted to talk about two aspects of fitness that usually are not connected and that is building muscle and weight loss. When people want to lose a couple of pounds through fitness their first thought is to increase the volume of cardio. Cardio activities will burn some unwanted calories while you are working out, but as soon as you stop the burn stops. I like to ask people “would you like to increase your metabolism and burn calories all day?” If you answered yes, then you need to increase your muscle mass. Increasing your muscle mass increases your basal metabolic rate which means you are turning your body into a calorie burning machine even when you are lounging around the house all day. So if you do not have some kind of strength training in your workout routine right now, look to add it and get that metabolism back from when you were a young buck.
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