Building Muscle to Burn Fat By Robert Kokoska At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

The physical fitness world is centered on the idea of building lean muscle as an aid for weight loss. Men and women are both constantly told that the more muscle they have on their bodies, the more weight they can lose.

But just how accurate is this statement and is more muscle really able to burn more fat off the body without any additional effort?

There have been many studies that have tried to determine how many calories get burnt for every pound of muscle on the body. The studies had concluded that between 30 and 50 extra calories were used up daily for every pound of muscle that was added to the body. With this fact being confirmed, how long then, does it take to build an extra pound of muscle?

For men, it usually takes about one month. For women it can take up to twice as long or even more. If you are trying to build muscle without any type of supplementation, it can be a fairly slow process of tearing and rebuilding the muscle.

If you are trying to build some extra muscle as an aid to weight loss, the tearing and repairing process is really the only way to see the effect of your workouts over time.

If you plan to build more muscle, there are many tried and tested ways to do that. No matter what program you choose, there are always a few necessary actions that will have to take place if you wish to maximize muscle growth and at the same time minimize any pain that comes with tearing a muscle.

When you work a muscle by using weights, you will get to a point where the muscle can no longer lift the amount of weight being lifted. This is called the "point of failure". When you push a muscle to this point, it begins to get tiny tears within itself.

These little tears generally rebuild over 48 hours of resting and gain a little muscle mass in the process. It's this new muscle that will burn those extra calories.

One of the biggest keys for building muscle safely and as painlessly as possible is by stretching. After you tear a muscle, a chemical called lactic acid will enter the area and begin the healing process. It's this lactic acid that causes the pain in the muscles after a workout.

Stretching can help to dissipate the lactic acid and reduce the "day after" pain that is usually felt after an intense workout session.

It is usually a wise idea not to engage in weight training daily. At the most, you should have one day on and one day off to allow yourself that 48 hours of recovery and growth. There are some muscle groups that recover much faster such as the abdominal muscles which can safely be exercised on a daily basis.

So how many extra calories will all this muscle burn? If you were to add 1 pound of muscle to your body, that would equate to about an extra 1500 calories burnt per month and that's without any extra effort.

If you continued with your training and gain an extra 10 pounds of lean muscle, that would account for about 15,000 extra calories burnt every month, which equates to a little over 4 pounds of fat!

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