Women and Weight Training

Our society loves beauty. The most beautiful bodies are symmetrical, lean and firm. So why are most women starving themselves and spending hours on cardio machines trying to be skinny? Lack of knowledge! Most women don’t understand the importance of weight training and how it can help shape their bodies into fat burning machines. The more strong active muscles you have the more fat your body will burn. Remember, muscleburns fat!!

I hear women say that they are afraid to weight train because they don’t want to get “big and bulky”. Women who weight train won’t increase their muscle size much, just their muscle’s density and strength. So forget about that “bulking up” fear. As a woman ages, she begins to loose more muscle because after puberty your essential muscle growth is over and your muscle starts to deteriorate. The act of pregnancy further accelerates your muscle loss because the amount of protein your baby needs to develop requires the baby to steal protein (muscle) from you! Furthermore, re-menopausal, menopausal and post menopausal women have lower hormone levels causing accelerated muscle loss. Weight training with a proper nutrition plan will help re-build your lost muscle.

So why is muscle so important? Muscle is the driving force behind your metabolism. The more muscle you have, the more fat and calories you will burn. A good metabolism doesn’t happen by accident, yes genetics play a part in metabolism, but your life’s choices affect your metabolism as well. Some keys to a good metabolism are: weight training, a nutritious diet, an active lifestyle and a consistency in each.

We are often programmed to think we have to weigh a certain amount to be happy. We say to ourselves “If only I could weigh what I did in high school”. You need to get rid of that scale mentality. Who cares how much you weigh. The most athletic bodies are often considered overweight if you place them on the standard height/weight chart or BMI chart. How is that possible you ask? Because muscle is so dense that it weighs much more than fat. Muscle also holds about 60% more water than fat tissue causing muscular people to weigh much more than their “skinny fat” counterparts. Since muscle weighs more than fat, don’t think that you have to be a certain weight. What you should be most concerned about is your muscle mass % and your body fat%, your body composition. How much muscle and fat is on your body? Or are you firm and tight? To be “lean” you need to have a high percentage of muscle and a lower amount of body fat. That way you can see those sexy muscles your fat is hiding.

So how do you go about getting those muscles you ask?? Weight train! There are 3 larger main muscles that our bodies are comprised of, your legs, back and chest. Metabolism will be affected most if these 3 muscle groups are emphasized since they comprise the majority of the muscle mass on our bodies.

Let’s talk about the area that all women are concerned about the most, legs and your butt. Leg muscles are the biggest strongest muscles of our body. The majority of women don’t realize how strong and powerful their legs can be without getting bulky. I know that most women have a fear of lifting with their legs because they often carry a higher amount of fat in their legs and therefore fear adding bulk to their lower half through strength training. As women we don’t have the levels of testosterone necessary to build big bulky muscles as men do, so don’t think that if you lift with your legs you will make them significantly bigger. Initially yes, a small amount of muscle growth will occur and before you start loose your fat on top of this muscle, you may notice a slight size increase, but this is temporary. Shortly thereafter, you will notice your legs start to gain new shape, firmness and a leaner appearance. All of which is caused by these muscles becoming more active and therefore burning more fat.

Oh my favorite, the back! Most women are absolutely unaware of the huge potential fat burning muscles they have on their back. Our backs are full of muscles. There are tons of them holding our spine, ribs and shoulders in place. These muscles are very important to our health. How often do we hear about back and neck pain? I truly believe that weak back muscles cause much of the pain. Lifting with your back requires proper form and extreme focus on the muscles you are working.

Finally, our chest muscles. I am talking about your pectorals, the muscles all women need to embrace. Pregnancy and breast-feeding do horrible things to a woman’s breasts. The looks of a woman’s breast goes beyond the mammary tissue, it lies underneath in the pectoral muscles. Pregnancy can rob our bodies of muscle which means the muscle that once lifted our breast now is gone and it too needs to be rebuilt. If you want to give yourself a natural breast lift and boost your metabolism, build up your chest.

You must find a way to challenge your muscles. Lifting the same weight every time you perform an exercise will maintain what muscle you have, but not change them. I don’t know many people that like spending an hours at the gym every week to stay exactly the same. We all crave to improve ourselves, so we must challenge our muscles by lifting weights that are challenging. There is nothing complicated about this, make sure you find yourself slightly challenged by your lifting program.

Lastly change it up! If your muscles get used to the same thing over and over again they will get bored just like you do. Boredom causes your muscle to not respond just as it causes you to not want to do your boring workout. Don’t be afraid to change, try some new exercises, change the number of sets and reps of your exercises, increase or decrease your rest time between sets and workouts and change the order of your exercises. Remember muscle burns fat.