Why Should Women Lift Weights?

Why should women lift weights? It’s a question that still comes up and time again the subject makes me laugh when women ask, so I’ll explain the most efficient way that I can. The mast majority of women continue to believe that lifting weight is only for men. The fact is women won’t bulk up. Females are not genetically geared towards muscle mass, mainly due to a lack of testosterone. Some women do put on more muscle than others but how much can be controlled by calorie intake. If you eat too much, you will generally get bigger in size regardless of weight training. Lean tissue actually helps burn calories. The more muscle you have the more calories you burn at rest, speeding up your metabolism and making it easier to stay lean. It’s understandable that most women don’t want huge muscles but a layer of lean tissue will not only add shape to your body but will also turn it into a fat burning machine.
A majority of women can be found on cardio machines doing this for endless hours. The problem with this is that without resistance training, it won’t help your body lean tissue percentage. Doing cardio without weights usually means you won’t have much muscle, which in turn means you will burn less calories at rest compared to someone with more muscle. Therefore, you will have to eat less to stay lean. The more exercise you do, the more you can do which means your body will get used to whatever you do.
RUNNING AND ITS DANGERS: If you run for 30 minutes a day, over a period of time that 30 minutes will become easier and you will get better at dealing with the energy expenditure. You will probably also start to see less progress. Many women then reduce their calorie intake to combat this so they end up eating less, slowing the metabolism and losing muscle because everything is used as fuel to survive and nothing is left for growth and repair. The solution is resistance training. Once you start weight training, your basal metabolic rate will slowly rise and you can add more calories. That is why some of my clients tell me that they are a little more hungry more often once the weight training is introduced. Apart from fat loss, comes shape when adding resistance training. The health benefits of resistance training include reducing the risk of osteoporosis and improving strength and balance.

So get into the gym, lift some weights and lets make a lifestyle change.

Mikhael aka. MRSPFitness