Community » Get Advice » Exercise and Fitness » Developing lean muscle as a catalyst for significant weight loss

By lean muscle do you mean you don't want to get bulky? Or that you want to drop fat (get lean) at the same time that you build muscle?

The way that your muscle develops is genetically predetermined so there's not really a way to know before you start lifting whether you will bulk quickly or slowly - which parts of your body grow easily vs slowly and whether your muscle fibers are long or short. If you have short muscle fibers it's easier to acheive a bulky look - bulging biceps, peaks in the quad over the knee, calf definition, double-peak triceps etc. If you have long muscle fibers you have to work much harder to develop bulk and bulges but you probably will lose fat more easily.

Generally, heavy weight and lower reps (sets of 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 or 15) are much better for building muscle - it stimulates the muscle more so you'll get much much faster results and it burns a lot more calories than light weight high rep. You'll also work a lot harder using free weights and body weight (i.e. pushups, chin/pull-ups, planks, dips, single-leg squats and bulgarian split squats, jump squats and lunges, etc) than machines, so I recommend that for fastest results. Standing exercises engage more muscles too than sitting/lying ones - so if you have a choice opt for standing (i.e. standing dumbell shoulder press vs seated) and you'll get more out of it - especially core as it has to work harder to stabilize you when you're lifting from a standing position.

If you want to avoid bulking but want to be lean and strong you'll prob be best off focusing on body-weight work and just supplementing with weights here and there.

As you have figured out already, increasing muscle mass is a great way to speed up fat loss when you're trying to lose weight. However, that alone will not lose the poundage, in order to lose MORE fat pounds than you are putting on in muscle you'll have to also eat clean and may need to put in some cardio time as well. I say may because people are different - what may be necessary for one person to stimulate significant fat loss may be completely un-necessary for another.