If you want to lose weight, but can’t get the scale to budge, it might be time to try a new approach.
Strength training — which encompasses things like free weights, resistance bands, and bodyweight exercises — helps maintain weight loss by developing muscle, a key driver of your body’s calorie-burning power.
“It's very common for people to think that calorie burn alone is what equates to fat loss, but we need to first be in a healthy spot metabolically for our bodies to drop the weight,” says Lucas Hines, a Wisconsin-based performance coach with Future.
Hines works with many clients whose main fitness goal is weight loss. At first, they’re often hesitant to swap cardio for strength training due to common weight loss myths. He frequently hears things like “cardio is the only way to slim down” or, from women in particular, “lifting makes you bulky.”
“Most of these misconceptions come from an oversimplified view of calories in versus calories out, or outdated ideas about women’s physiology,” Hines explains. “But when both men and women combine strength training with balanced nutrition and light cardio, the results can be impressive at any age.”
Your metabolism is the sum of all the energy your body uses to function, from digesting food to pumping blood to your brain. The largest portion of this daily energy use is your resting metabolic rate (RMR), or the calories you burn just to stay alive.
Unlike fat tissue, which is relatively inactive, muscle tissue is metabolically demanding. It takes energy to maintain, repair, and grow muscle fibers. That means the more lean muscle mass you have, the more calories your body burns at rest, even when you’re sleeping or sitting at a desk.
“The biggest thing I always tell my clients if they want to lose weight is to build muscle through strength training,” Hines says. “More muscle mass over time helps burn more calories consistently without the need to do a bunch of cardio.”
When people lose weight through diet or cardio alone, they often lose a mix of fat and muscle. Losing muscle lowers your resting metabolic rate, making it more challenging to maintain weight loss in the long term.
“Cardio sends a signal to the body to lose muscle mass, especially if we're restricting calories, because we don't need muscle mass to do cardio,” Hines says. “The body naturally wants to get rid of any non-essential calorie burner, so if you’re in a calorie deficit and doing too much cardio, this will ultimately stall your metabolism.”
Strength training helps preserve and build lean muscle during a fat-loss phase, causing your body to enter a metabolic fat burn. Over time, that makes it easier to maintain a healthy weight without drastic calorie restriction.
Strength training doesn’t just raise your baseline burn; it also triggers something called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC).
After an intense lifting session, your body needs to restore oxygen levels, repair muscle fibers, and replenish energy stores. All of this requires extra energy, which means your metabolism stays elevated for hours or days after the workout is over.
This “afterburn effect” isn’t as dramatic as some fitness myths claim — you won’t be burning thousands of extra calories while you sleep — but it does give strength training an edge compared to steady-state cardio, which usually returns your metabolism to baseline shortly after exercise ends.
You don’t need to start with deadlifts to incorporate strength training into your weight loss routine. Future Performance Coach Kaya Luciani recommends starting with basics, like bodyweight exercises or resistance band work, and building on that foundation with each workout.
“Exercises should be challenging enough to fatigue your muscles without pushing you to your absolute max every time,” Luciani says.
As for how often you should incorporate these exercises into your routine, she states that it won’t take more than a couple of times per week to start reaping the benefits.
“As little as two days per week can be enough to see results, and is a great place to start if you’re strength training for the first time,” Luciani says.
When you’re ready to increase strength training frequency, it’s best to talk to your coach or personal trainer to help create a routine for your specific goals, schedule and available equipment.
