Ladies Start Your Engines to Lose Weight

Thanks to significant research devoted to the study of the benefits of strength training it is now recognized to be an essential part of any effective fitness or weight loss program. Strength training provides anti aging and metabolism (the body's engine) boosting benefits for greater vigor and vitality.

Women of all ages, in particular, see tremendous benefits from strength training exercise.

But for women over 40 years old, this is essential to help them avoid that predicable metabolic slowdown and sluggishness that often occurs at that stage in life. These women are discovering the secret to keeping off the middle age spread is not to eat less, but to strength train more.

Traditionally, women relied on cardiovascular (walking, jogging or cycling) activity and a low calorie diet to change their physical appearance. Unfortunately, low calorie diets have been proven to work against the body's ancient metabolic code and have a 95% failure rate. The fact is, without including consistent strength training in a weight loss program, effecting change can be an impossible goal.

Also, long, slow, steady state overtraining can lead to injury. We now know that strength training exercise is absolutely essential if we wish to create visual changes in our bodies such as improved body shape, firmness and all over body tone. But the benefits of strength training have been discovered to extend far beyond the visual.

Along with strengthening our muscles strength training creates strong ligaments and tendons, which serve to support our joints and decrease the likelihood of injury from other activities. When muscles are exercising under a load the bones that they are attached too are strengthened also, reducing the risk of osteoporosis.

Strength training enhances quality of life, as it enables us to better perform daily activities that require lifting, pushing, pulling twisting and carrying. This means we can do our daily chores easier and still have enough energy left over for the leisure and 'fun' activities that we enjoy.

Women further benefit from strength training because of the increase in resting metabolism (the body's engine) created by strength training. Because of this increase, more calories are burnt for fuel 24/7 so women who are trying to reduce excess body fat will do so more easily.

It is a shame that many women are afraid of strength training because they believe that it will create large muscles that are unattractive or they will become bulky. "I will do it once I get this fat off. I don't want to turn it into muscle". This is a prevalent but incorrect misconception. The vast majority of women cannot build large muscles because they are simply genetically incapable of doing so. It is impossible to turn body fat into muscle, or muscle into body fat, as each cell is unique from the other.

It is also strange that women worry about becoming bulky from strength training when they are already bulked up from an excess of stored body fat. Muscle tissue is the little firm bit under all the bulky fat, and it is a women's best friend when it comes to burning off that body fat.

So, don't be ever be afraid of muscle tissue, embrace it as a tool to help you not only stay youthful no matter your age but to get and stay in the best possible shape of your life. Start working on tuning up your fat burning machinery today with the only exercise program that will do it ? strength training exercise.