Women and Weights

Women and weights do mix. Whenever I suggest to a women about weight lifting I usually get a lot of push back. I would like to use this article to correct myths and share some truths.

1. Weightlifting does burn calories. If it burns calories for men it works the same for the female population. To really burn calories add an extra aerobic routine to your workout. Use the stair climber or whatever you like for 10 minutes prior to your lifting routine. Ensure you are at your Target Heart Rate for the 10 minutes so to "kick Start" your metabolism. *I recommend this to guys as well. Infact this what I do!

2. Women and weights does not always have the same results as men and weights. In other words, you will not look more like a man, unless you want to. The difference is working for tone vs mass. Not every man who works out with weights looks like Arnold either. Look at my other articles on weight lifting.

3. If you lift you will not look fat. In reality you will be performing fat burning in the gym while building muscle. Reduce the fat around a tight, toned muscle and other will notice.

Weights can help you acheive the sexy body and be more pretty than ever before. Why is that? Because with weight you not only burn calories but you target parts of your body that you may want to tighten.

For example you may have hit a wall on developemnt in the buns area with the stair climer, but lunges with dumb bells may give that little extra target that you desire.

You can also build confidence. I recommend machines for beginners. If you are a beginner then you may start at the machines. It helps build some strength and range of motion to move the weight.

Your confidence will soar when you can move from machines to free weights. Also movement with weights are not restricted so you can really target those muscle groups.

Women who weight lift find there are a few benefits for their efforts such as;

1. Prevents atrophy. This is a muscular condition where muscle will shrink and lose their strength if not used. Adding weights to your exercise routine will keep your muscles toned and strong so that you can enjoy the activities that you like.

2. Lower the risk to Osteoporosis. Utilizing weights help maintain and build density to the skeletal bones. Osteoporosis is a condition that occurs mainly when estrogen levels decrease such as menopause.

3. Women and weights equals Increased metabolism. As we get older everyone's metabolism slows down, which occurs in men as well as women. During recovery your metabolism helps build and tone muscle. This in turn burns stored energy (fat) to build these muscles.

I am going to provide a few helpful hints for women and weights success in the gym. Most of these are the same I give to men also and women can get the same benefits.

Ensure you have a well balanced diet for the goals you are trying to achieve. This is vital for success because what you eat is the fuel for your body to grow stronger and recover. For example if you are into more cardio and you are trying to tone and build muscle you should add some protein rich foods or supplements.

Remember, if you are a runner and you are building muscle this may have an effect on your run times when you start building muscle. It should only be temporary because your body will adjust and your run times will come back. You will balance these routines to maintain your run times because your body will have to carry the added muscle.

After a while of working out you will find that the weight lifting is getting easy. That is because your body has become accustomed to the routine of a certain amount of weight for a certain amount of repetitions and sets.

Women and weights should change up their routine. This will confuse your muscles and keep your routine fresh. For example if you bench press first after stretching then you perform five or six other exercises, change up and do the bench press last.

You can also add weight or reduce weight to change your routine. If you add weight you will probably have to do fewer repetitions but try and do more sets. If you reduce the weight try and do max sets (doing as many repetitions until exhaustion) for fewer sets.

Last, always remember to stretch. Women and weight lifting can reduce flexibility and your flexibility is what keeps you from injury. So stretch before exercise and after.

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