Top 10 Reasons Every Women Should Lift Weights

For every woman that contacts me to lose weight, I’d say that easily, 98% of you have the same concern. “I want to lose weight, tone up, but I don’t want to look muscular”. So, against my advice, and that of anyone that knows about fitness, you will continue to be a cardio slave. Trying day and night to “tone up” and not trying to change your body composition. No disrespect to cardio, but the best way to blast fat and get in shape, is strength training. Here’s why.

You’ll Burn More Fat

Forget about that “fat burning” zone on your cross-trainer or treadmill. Strength training is better at helping people lose belly fat compared with cardio. While aerobic exercise burns both fat and muscle, weight lifting burns almost exclusively fat. Hours doing cardio is actually counterproductive as once you reach a certain amount of calories or energy expelled; your body will start to use up your muscle as fuel for energy. This is why the cardio bunny will never tighten up or “tone up”. You need muscle for tightness and aesthetics.

Burning More Calories Everyday

Just sitting here writing this article I am burning more calories than you. Yes you, the cardio bunny. Your muscle mass largely determines your resting metabolic heart rate-how many calories you burn at rest. The more muscle you have the more energy your body expends. Everything you do in your day from brushing your teeth to walking to your car, you will burn more calories- that is if you weight lift.

You Will Be Stronger Mentally

How you ask? Well by constantly challenging yourself to do things you never thought possible, your confidence grows. This will bleed over into all areas of your life. Ask any girl that’s lifts weights and she will agree 100 percent. With confidence and believing you can, well, you can do anything. Weight lifting empowers you.

You will Boost your Flexibility

Now this is almost laughable as I picture a big, buff, 260lb muscle head in a yoga class. But seriously. If you lift using a full-range of motion, key word full range, you will actually improve flexibility just as well as your typical static stretching routine. Now, if you can’t complete the full range-going all the way up and all the way back down, you may need to use a lighter weight and work your way back up.

Strengthening Your Bones

Not only is strength training building your muscles, it trains your bones as well. With each movement your muscles will tug on your bones. The cells within the bones react by creating new bone cells. Your bones become stronger and denser. This is especially important to help us later in life through menopause and aging. If there is osteoporosis in your family history, this is about the only preventative “medicine” to help yourself along with your calcium and other vitamins and minerals. Make your base strong, be strong for life.

You Will Starts Dropping Dress Sizes

A new wardrobe on the horizon is motivation enough for some. Strength training has a bad reputation of making women “bulk up”. But its far from the truth. The more your weight comes from muscle rather than fat, the smaller you will be. In fact, body weight often goes up with strength training, but dress size goes down by one or two sizes. But the biggest fact here is that it is REALLY REALLY difficult for a woman to get body builder huge. We simply do not produce enough testosterone as men do. This limits our muscle building potential when compared to men.

You will Ease Joint Pain

Squat low. As low as you can go. Proper form in strength training is the solution to joint aches. Stronger muscles better hold your joints in position so you wont have to worry about your kness flaring up on your next run.

You’ll Be A Better Runner or Athlete

Simple. Stronger muscles mean better performance. Your core will better be able to support your bodys weight and maintain ideal form during other exercises or activities. Your arms and legs will be more powerful. And back to my earlier point, you will also be burning more calories while running or playing hockey because your muscle mass has increased and your body will need to consume more energy.

You’ll have a Healthier Heart

Cardiovascular exercise is not the only way to help your heart health. Strength training with moderate rest periods in between sets can be just as beneficial. Studies have shown that even moderate intensity resistance training can decrease blood pressure by up to 20 percent. That’s as good, if not better than your average blood pressure medications.

My favorite

Because when a girls walks up to the pull up bar and reps out 10 pull ups, every ones jaw drops. Trust me.