Can strength training improve metabolism

The answer is yes, but its improvement is far less exaggerated than the "train once and lie down and lose weight for a day" spread online. People with different training intensities and stages will feel great differences in the effects.

The core of the metabolism improvement we often talk about is the increase in resting metabolism - that is, the calories consumed by your body while lying still to maintain normal operation. The resting metabolic rate of muscle is about 3 times that of fat under the same weight. One pound of muscle consumes approximately 6 kcal per day, while one pound of fat consumes only 2 kcal. I used to have a member who followed me and lost weight purely by running. He was 163cm tall, weighed 108kg, had a body fat rate of 31%, and a resting metabolism of only 1180 calories. If he ate more than 1200 calories, he would gain weight. Later, he added strength training three times a week. After half a year, his weight was still 108, body fat dropped to 24%, and his resting metabolism increased to 1320, which is equivalent to drinking one more sugar-free latte every day without any burden.

Of course, many people think that "strength training to increase metabolism" is an IQ tax, and this view is also valid. If you only practice once in a while, or lift a two-pound small dumbbell every time, you will not even feel muscle soreness, and you will not reach the threshold of muscle gain at all. You may not be able to gain two pounds of muscle in half a year. Calculating, you will only consume an extra ten calories a day, which is not as high in calories as a cookie, so you will naturally not feel the change.

In addition to the improvement in resting metabolism brought about by long-term muscle gain, in the 12 to 24 hours after strength training, the body also needs to repair stretched muscle fibers and replenish consumed muscle glycogen. During this period, additional calories will be consumed, which is what the fitness circle often calls the afterburn effect. Many people have sore legs after training that they have trouble walking down the stairs the next day. In fact, the body is secretly burning more calories during those days. There are many friends around me who are stuck in the weight loss plateau. They don’t eat more or do less exercise. They just add shoulder and back training twice a week. They break through the plateau in less than three weeks. This is the superposition of this immediate effect and long-term metabolic improvement.

But don’t overestimate this effect. Even if you train hard and gain 10 pounds of pure muscle in a year, you will only consume an extra 30 calories a day. If you really want to show off the extra calories from a hot pot meal, you still have to rely on exercise. It is more like a support for your metabolism, so that you don’t have to be hungry to maintain your weight. Occasionally, if you crave for something good, it will not be easy to gain weight all at once.