WHAT WOMEN WANT

Why Weight Training For Woman Is Important,
At a certain point, just about every woman who has ever picked up a dumbbell or walked into a gym starts to think, “I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing and it just isn’t working”. The reason ladies, is that what you’ve been told to do is not what you are supposed to do to achieve your goals.
After a few years of training women (and men) some of the truths I have learnt are that:
• men and woman should be doing workouts that are more similar than different;
• woman should focus on making their muscles bigger and stronger;
• bigger and stronger muscles will look different on women than they do on men;
• variety in exercise crucial; and
• the workout you haven’t tried could be the best one yet.

LIFT LIKE A MAN

If you’ve ever watched a man working out in the gym, you can be forgiven for not immediately recognising the bountiful lessons he has to offer. You were probably thinking:
• Poor form;
• Overly optimistic weight selection – really poor form;
• What’s that noise (?!?) (the odd guttural noises he makes while lifting those too heavy weights with really poor form);
• What on earth is the attraction to the bench press; and
• When is he going to do the exercises designed to work those muscles he can’t yet see in the mirror?!?
Despite what you may think of the average meathead, puffing away in the gym there’s a lot to be learnt.

LESSONS FOR THE LADIES

The purpose of weight lifting is to build muscle
Weight training advice for women revolves around three important words, namely, toning, shaping, and sculpting.

TONING has a specific meaning in exercise science and refers to the firmness of muscles when not deliberately being flexed. Toning isn’t something one can immediately see, but is improved with weight training. In short toning makes muscles look better without making them look bigger. If weights don’t challenge you, your muscles won’t grow. If muscles don’t grow, they won’t look toned (even if you could somehow strip off whatever fat sits on top of them). Put another way – your body will not look healthy, (with or without excess fat) without well-trained muscle tissue.

SHAPING offers a different but equally unique promise. Muscle shape is determined by genetics. You can, however, change your muscle size in proportion to other muscles in your body. Shaping means you can change the shape of your body by making certain muscles look smaller in proportion to other muscles in your body.

SCULPTING is the most meaningful of all and implies a combination of muscle growth and fat loss that leaves a weight lifters physique well sculpted. Remember though – you can’t sculpt muscles that you haven’t built!
I can almost hear every woman reading this saying, “but I don’t want to get too bulky”.

Ladies, unless you are a genetic outlier, lifting weights will not make you bulky because your genetic make-up will not allow it. I have never walked into gym thinking – today I’m going to try to not get too big! Muscles are hard to build! For most guys out there, there is no such thing as too big when it comes to muscles. Those of us who train drug free celebrate each ounce each muscle we add and every millimeter of upper arm girth. Some guys even obsess about the circumference of their necks. Why?!? Because we know that it’s really hard to increase muscle size. Every increase in muscle size no matter how small is a sign of triumph against the odds and that’s with the hormonal advantages nature has bestowed on men in the form of testosterone. Weight training isn’t going to turn you into a shemale because your body simply won’t allow it!

Step away from the treadmill

You are probably wondering whether I am the victim of too many protein shakes at this point. Maybe, but my view is that steady pace endurance exercise (what most of us refer to as cardio) is an overrated fat loss tool. I don’t dispute the indisputable though and so yes, I accept that endurance exercise does burn calories and does contribute to a healthier life. There are, however, better ways to lose body fat. Exercise at high levels of intensity (HIIT) will give you all the benefits you want from endurance exercise without requiring you do as much of it; but the high level of intensity is crucial. Look out for my next article, “Quality VS Quantity(The facts about High Intensity Interval Training( HIIT )”