You here it all the time from women saying, “I don’t want to get bulky and look like a man”. Very often when you go to the gym you see most men lifting weights while women remain in the cardio section, running on treadmills, using exercise bikes and elliptical machines. Sadly, gym attendants also play a role in this gender separation because when putting programs together for new enrollees they discourage women from resistance training because women are more concerned about their scale weight than men and trainers know that building muscle adds weight. Gym trainers make aggressive “weight loss” plans with weekly check-ups for women with small amounts of resistance training to meet those aggressive goals. Gyms don’t have negative ulterior motives, they just know the statistics and the self-efficacy for the average client. They have nothing to gain in trying to educate women in the importance of muscle. It’s more to their interest to keep their clients satisfied so they’ll continue to renew their memberships without canceling their contracts.
Here are six reasons why women should lift weights.
1. Weight Training Burns Calories and Increases Fat Loss.
When you do cardiovascular exercise, you’re burning a ratio of both fat and glycogen, but when glycogen levels fall too low your body begins catabolizing muscle fiber. A resistance training program that targets all muscle groups tell your body that the extra muscle is needed and shouldn’t be expunged from lack of use. The problem is that your body still needs to account for the calorie deficit you’ve created which means your body has no choice but to burn more body fat. Weight training in and of itself can also burn more calories on certain exercises. Examples of high calorie burning exercises are squats, lunges and deadlifts which really increases your heart rate and exerts a lot of energy. Resistance training can offer the same calorie burning benefits of high intensity interval training. Your resting metabolic rate or RMR will be substantially increased which causes you to burn calories for the next 24 to 48 hours while recovering from a high intensity bout of exercise.
2. Weight training makes you look sexy and toned.
It’s so common for women to say they just want to get toned, sexy and shape their muscles. The phrase “get toned” is just a marketing term used by companies trying to promote their products to women. Unfortunately it comes with a negative stigma of light touch-up resistance training priorities by cardio. If you truly want to look toned and reshape your muscles, you must remove the fat and only the fat covering those muscles, so you must take resistance training seriously with a challenging weekly full body and not a dainty little waste of time program with little pink dumbbells. Adding muscle doesn’t make women look bulky, it makes them look sexy. Sexy sculpted legs, defined shoulders and arms and flat abs are just a few of what you’ll experience. You must challenge yourself just as much as a man which will set you apart from average women at the gym. Accidentally getting bulked up is a myth and it’s almost impossible for women because they generally lack the body structure with less testosterone and other anabolic hormones. Muscular bulky looking women are a rare occurrence and when they are seen, it’s because they wanted to look that way. They worked extremely hard and probably took performance enhancers to achieve the look. Even most men who lift weights for years struggle to achieve a bulked-up body.
3. More Muscle means More Fat Gets Burned.
In addition to your body choosing to burn fat instead of muscle because you’re not losing it because you’re using it, the new muscle being added also burns more pure fat. Muscle is active tissue and more muscle equals a higher metabolism. It burns fat 24 hours a day, even while you sleep. Muscle is like a parked car with an engine running at idle. The car may not be moving but a larger engine still consumes more gasoline than a smaller engine even when both are not moving. Even if your goal is weight loss, resistance training should take priority over cardiovascular exercise. Cardiovascular exercise burns fat but resistance training burns fat and builds muscle.
4. Weight Training Improves Your Health
It was believed for many years that only daily cardiovascular exercise was good for heart and cardiovascular health. Doctors and public health officials are now beginning to understand and recommend the true benefits of weight training because of the substantial and wide range of benefits. Weight training improves heart health, sensitivity to insulin, blood cholesterol, bone density (extremely important for women), and other health benefits. It reduces lower back pain, improves you posture and gives you more energy.
5. Weight Training is the Chisel You Use to Sculpt Your Body
Spot fat reduction is impossible. You are not able to target areas of the body where fat gets removed. Only your body can choose areas of fat removal and it’s completely independent of what muscles are being activated. The rules are completely different for building muscle. Building muscle is like having a chisel and being able choose which areas you want to look the sexiest. Insertion points, bone structure and height are areas you’ll never be able to change but making your body look like an hour glass or Coca-Cola bottle is fully in your control. Your body is like a living breathing statue and resistance training is a sharpened sturdy chisel.
6. Weight Training Helps Reverse the Aging Process
Most people fear getting old because they don’t want to look like an old person. Who doesn’t fear a day where they need to wear diapers again and use a walker to get around? These are just two of many examples of what can happen from unmonitored muscle loss. People who don’t strength train and maintain a lean body can expect to lose about 40 percent of their total muscle by the time they turn 65. The process of muscle loss is so horrible that it has been labeled as a disease called “sarcopenia”. Sarcopenia is what makes old people soft, fragile, have brittle bones and can be pushed over with a simple gust of wind. There is no surgery or medication that can solve this problem. Strength training is the best solution for fighting sarcopenia at its root. Just like other diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes, once you have it, it’s extremely hard to get rid of.
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