Specifically, does muscle burn more calories at rest. This is one of those questions that everyone seems to know the answer to (dangling preposition alert!), and they're mostly right. Sort of.
What got me thinking about this (again) was an article entitled 12 Workout Myths That Just Need To Die. It's not a bad article, but Myth #2 includes this: "...having more lean muscle will help your body burn more calories at rest."
Of course, right? Well, sort of.
As you probably know, I'm a big proponent of hitting things...aka "wapping"...as a form of training for both strength and endurance (and winning arguments). While most of the references to wapping here have been using various pads like coaching mitts, Muay Thai pads, or kicking shields, those require a willing and able partner which is not always easy to find. But there are alternatives, the most practical being a heavy bag (sometimes called a "punching bag" but that's just wrong).
There are lots of options with heavy bags--in selecting (or making) one, setting it up, and using it. In this post, we'll take a look at getting ready for bag wapping. A near-future post will discuss some ways to use it in your workout.
As you all remember from the post on macronutrients, protein is one of the Big Three. How much protein should you be getting? Are you getting enough? These are important questions for anyone, but especially folks on the high side of 40...and they get more important as we go along.
As usual, the answer to these important questions starts with, "It depends..."
It's been a long time since The Form Cop turned up in The Planet. So long, in fact, that he doesn't show up on this site! His return is long overdue, along with some background information on why he remains so important. (At least, he thinks so.)
A reminder from an early appearance of The Form Cop as to why form matters:
I wrote a post last year about online personal training. (I even used this same image. Efficiency!) In a nutshell, I'm not convinced it can work well without at least some in-person sessions.
However, it's still a big thing on the internet, largely because it can be easy and profitable for trainers to implement. Still, I was a bit disturbed to see this article directed at personal trainers on the topic of online training. Some of it is fine, but this part in particular bugs me:
Every January, zillons* of people start a new fitness program and the gyms fill up. By February, most of the newbies are missing workouts and by March things are pretty much back to normal (to the relief of the regular gym-goers). It doesn't only happen at the start of each new year, although that's a reliable occurrence. It would be nice to have statistics on the median lifespan of a new fitness routine. I'm confident it would be less than 30 days.
So what goes wrong? Why do so many people quit? Often, it's a case of doing too much too soon.
The scale is the dreaded measuring device most commonly used to check changing body composition; that is, are you getting fatter? It's not a good measure, though, since it doesn't really tell us anything about body composition--the ratios of fat, muscle, bone, and water that make up total body weight. Water can be particularly confounding since one cup weighs about half a pound, so drinking a beverage or using the bathroom can immediately change results in a measurable way. What we're really interested in is body fat percentage--that's the most useful measure of body "comp."
If the scale isn't up to snuff, what is?
