This guest blog post was written by fitness and nutrition author Vince DelMonte I have his permission to share it with you.
While some individuals are strictly interested in obtaining muscle for aesthetics, for most people, this isn’t an interest. Instead, you’re more interested in knowing what health benefits weight lifting will have for you…

Far too many people overlook the many health and fitness benefits that weight training has to offer, and because of this, experience problems down the road with their body such as decreased bone density, a slowed metabolic rate, increased stress levels and other negative consequences that are associated with constant stress.
Increased Bone Density

Weight lifting, being one of the best weight bearing exercises you can do, will increase your bone density and help ward off osteoporosis or stress fractures in the future.

Many people think running is the best exercise for increasing bone density, but this isn’t necessarily true. If the truth is told, running actually promotes muscle breakdown in the body, while weight lifting, being an anabolic process, helps to promote the building of tissues.

Therefore, weight lifting is going to be much better at preserving your bone mass, not to mention it’s far less impact than going for an hour run.

Decreased Frequency of Injuries

When you strength train, not only are your muscles going to get stronger, but you’ll also work the ligaments and tendons that are connecting bones, muscles, and other tissues, thus reducing the chance they become injured when participating in other physical activities.

If you’ve ever been injured, you know just how frustrating this can be. In about 80% of all injury cases, the injury is a direct result of a tendon, ligament, or muscle not being strong enough when a stressful force is applied.

Since weight training will really hit all those deep tendons and ligaments, it’s the best injury prevention out there.

Reduction of Health Related Risks

Numerous studies have demonstrated that regular weight training can have a positive effect on health by showing reductions in the rate of insulin resistance, blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer.
If you couple a solid weight training program then with a well-thought out diet, you’ll be putting your best foot forward at warding off these chronic problems

Prevention of Fat Gain
The more you weight lift, the higher your metabolism will be, thus the more food you can eat while maintaining your weight. If that isn’t good news for your future and the fight against body fat, I’m not sure what is.

Now, with all of this said, one big problem many people run into is the thinking pattern that using a muscle building program will make you big and bulky.

This is most certainly not the case.

Let’s look at an analogy to gain an understanding of this.

Pretend you have two teams and each are going to try and build a house using the exact same building technique.

One team is given 10,000 bricks to construct this house, and the second team is given only 1,000 bricks.

Who’s going to build the bigger house?

The choice should be obvious – team one since they have more bricks to build it with.
Now, think of those bricks as being the calories you put into your body. Unless you’re supplying enough calories, you aren’t going to build really big muscles. This is precisely what makes bodybuilders look like bodybuilders.

It’s not just about the way they train, but more about the way they eat (if you’ve ever had a teenage son in the growing process in your house, you likely know just how much food must be consumed when growing at rapid rates).

Whether it’s growing in height during puberty or trying to build bigger muscles later on, calories must be supplied for this growth process to take place.

You can’t build a house out of nothing. Likewise, you can workout all you want, but if those building blocks – in the form of amino acids, carbohydrates, and dietary fats are not there, you aren’t going to see too much muscle growth.

So, don’t get caught thinking that just because you add weight lifting to your workouts, you’re going to develop large bulky muscles. If you control your diet, this simply will not happen.
So, hopefully it is clear now that just because you’re weight lifting, it does not mean you will end up with bulky muscles as a result. Many people make this incorrect assumption – but it really is the diet that makes all the difference in how this weight lifting will shape your body.
When you make the decision to work with me using my 6-Pack Ab Quest program, I’ll take you through the weight lifting and ab techniques that will provide maximum results with minimal effort on your part (why spend more time in the gym than you have to?), as well as provide you with meal plans that are custom designed to ensure you get the best results from your training without the muscle bulk – in fact, the plans are formulated to help you shed the fat so you look leaner and more defined.

Not choosing to include weight training as part of your current workout program is without-a-doubt the biggest mistake you could make as far as your long-term health and fitness level is concerned. Don’t let this exercise pass you by any longer.

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Well today’s weight training session got a bit messed up. I ended up running out of time and trained with one of my clients – the only problem was I ended up doing what they were doing which repeated some of the same movement patterns as I did yesterday.

Any way here it is:

AM: Weight Training Session

A1 Squats with dumbbells – to sitting on bench (2×15)
A2 DB bench press with double leg stretch (2×15)
A3 Alternating Bent over Row – db’s (2×15LR)

B1 Walking Lunges with knee up and skip (2×10LR)
B2 Lat Pulldown – wide overhand (2×15)
B3 Push Press – barbell (2×15)

C Biceps rope curl – drop set (10,10,10)

D Triceps rope press down – drop set (10,10,10)

Ab circuit
E1 Supine 90 crunch with medicine ball (20)
E2 Squirms (20,20)
E3 Reverse Crunch (10)

PM: 45 minutes run

Steady paced run – training my wife to run a half marathon (it’s the longest she’s ever run for today…I’m very proud of her).

So not an ideal day of training but I made it work for me. It takes me back to my first rule of training – being consistent.

It’s been 10 years at the end of the month since I quit professional rugby and I have a desire to get back and play this September (all be it at an amateur rugby level……I’m getting on a bit!!)

I’ll be adding some of the above exercises to my weight training technique website that is undergoing some beta testing at the moment.

If you would like to see 4 of my videos for free and sign up to the early notification list **click here**

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Continuing on the theme of reporting my training (due to so many requests) here’s the weight training program and cardio session I did today:

AM: Weight Training

A1 Forward Lunge over hurdle with bar loaded in front squat position (3 x8LR)
A2 Seated Mid Row – neutral grip (1×10, 2×8)
A3 Incline Chest Press – db’s (1×10, 2×6)

B1 Step Ups with arms in over head position-locked out (3 x 6LR)
B2 Low Cable Row (3x 8 LR)
B3 Single Leg Cable Hamstring Curls (3×10LR)

C1 Prone Rear Delts (2×8)
C2 Glute Hamstroc Raise (2×8)
C3 Bent Leg Calf Raises (2×8 – eccentric tempo)

PM: Cardio session

25 minute interval run on the road.

So that was today, two sessions planned again tomorrow.

Look out for my video on Kettlebell swings, I’ll be putting it up later.

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I’m asked by a lot of people exactly what I do in my weight training sessions, so in the interests of full disclosure I’m prepared to post my workouts that I do from time to time.
So today was.

A1 Kettlebell Swings (4×10)
A2 Bench Press (1x 10, 2x 4, 1x 3 eccentrics)
A3 Lat Pulldown –wide overhand (1x 10, 2x 6, 1x 4

B1 Cleans from blocks (1×10, 2x 4)
B2 Bent over Row – from dead (1x 10, 2x 6)
B3 Mixed Core – rotation and rotation control (some video clips of these to follow another day)

C1 Cable Biceps Curl – rope (2x 10)
C2 Cable Triceps Press down – rope (2x 10)
C3 Single Leg Eccentric Calf Work (2x 10 eccentrics)

On another day I’ll explain exactly what some of these weight training exercises are and how I use different resistance training techniques for different parts of my body, depending on if I’m weak point weak training or general conditioning training.

I got through this session in 35 minutes (that’s all the time I had).

Until next time, train hard, train smart, make every rep count.

P.S. If you would like someone to walk you through the process of fat loss and training that you can do from the comfort of you own home then you should look no further than Craig Ballantynes Turbulence Training. He is having a special new launch with 10 new ebooks to help you get where you’ve always wanted to be.

It ends today so don’t hang around or else you’ll miss out.

Just **click here ** to see what he’s offering.

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