Do you really continue to burn calories for hours after weight-lifting?

Question

Do you really continue to burn calories for hours after weight-lifting?

Answer 1

All exercise burns the energy immediately available to your muscles (ATP), and raises your metabolic rate, resulting in elevated heart rate, breathing, digestion, and an increase in body temperature. With the ATP depleted or exhausted, your body works overtime to digest the sugars it has available and turn it into a more readily accessible form, by recharging your ATP. If it can't find sugars and other carbohydrates, it uses body fat instead.

Weightlifting tends to do this all in one burst, and you will sometimes see when the Olympic lifters fail their second or third lift, it's because their legs give out, and sink beneath them before they throw the bar (to avoid being pinned underneath it!) It's not that they weren't strong enough, it's that their body wasn't able to get enough energy and oxygen to the legs in between their two lifts, and so the muscles just couldn't do it.

If you're asking this because you want to lose weight, the best way to do it is sustained aerobic activity for at least 15 minutes. Running, walking, and swimming are the best exercise for weight loss, as they use most of the muscles in your body, and they get your heart going. If you can't work a walk into your routine, cut a car ride from A to B out instead, and walk that distance.

Answer 2

Yes, you do.  Weight lifting increases you metabolism and so increases the number of calories you burn all day.

Answer 3

Yes, it amps up your metabolism, and your body uses a ton of resources to rebuild the muscle that has been damaged. Your metabolism is significantly increased for up to 48 hours.

However, this requires rigerous effort. We're not talking about 2 pound hand manuals here, but the kind of lifting or pushing or pulling that makes your face turn red :)