Maybe, they speculated, muscles and fat chatted together amiably after a workout. The researchers had been studying muscle health for years, but had grown increasingly interested in other tissues, especially fat. Perhaps, then, something happens at a molecular level right after resistance workouts that targets fat cells, a hypothesis that a group of scientists at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and other institutions recently decided to investigate. Likewise, in a study I covered earlier this month, people who occasionally lifted weights were far less likely to become obese than those who never lifted. In recent experiments, weight workouts goosed energy expenditure and fat burning for at least 24 hours afterward in young women, overweight men and athletes. But a growing number of studies suggest weight training also reshapes our metabolisms and waistlines. Lifting weights - or working against our body weight as we bob through push-ups, squats or chair dips - will noticeably boost our muscles’ size and strength.
Many of us pigeonhole resistance training as muscle building, and with good reason. They also underscore how extensive and interconnected the internal effects of exercise can be. The results add to mounting scientific evidence that resistance exercise has unique benefits for fat loss. The study, which involved mice and people, found that after weight training, muscles create and release little bubbles of genetic material that can flow to fat cells, jump-starting processes there related to fat burning. But by changing the inner workings of cells, weight training may also shrink fat, according to an enlightening new study of the molecular underpinnings of resistance exercise. We all know that lifting weights can build up our muscles.