1-Minute Fitness Tips

Building Muscle for Long-Term Health

Muscles are Good

Well the title here “Muscles are Good” may sound ridiculous, but it’s certainly true. You need muscles to move, to breathe... and to stay alive. And yet some people seem to be afraid of having too much muscle.

Lean muscle tissue helps increase your metabolism and decrease insulin resistance. These are good things if you want to be leaner.

Because within moderate levels muscle weight is good, and fat weight is bad, it’s difficult to use weight as a real measure of health. Body Mass Index, which is calculated using your height and weight, is a good predictor of disease for a population but a terrible predictor of anything in an individual.

So don’t worry about your weight, and don’t worry about gaining too much muscle as you’re finding the right exercise program. If you are exercising frequently with resistance, and you are exercising frequently with resistance right?

If you’re concerned about the aesthetics of muscle growth, decrease the weight, and increase the reps per set. But more importantly, decrease the rest time in between sets. Keep moving the whole workout. Change your routine so you perform exercises without long breaks or in some cases any break between sets.

For example instead of doing 3 sets of 6 exercises, you might do all 6 exercises back to back with only minimal breaks, then take a break at the end of the round. Then you’d repeat that process a total of 3 times. Try it out.