By MJ & Gabrielle Neuhaus-Harsh
We have all heard the stereotypes about what will happen if women lift weights. You will get bulky, it’s dangerous, it’s bad for your joints, and much more. Honestly, none of this is true, most of it is the opposite. Lifting weights will help you to have a healthier and stronger body. Who doesn’t want that! Many women would rather focus on cardio over lifting weights, however, the same results cannot be achieved from a strictly cardio-based routine. If you want to build muscle with your workout lifting weights is the best resistance exercise you can do. So, don’t avoid lifting weights just because you are a woman, and here are more reasons why you should lift.
The Many Benefits of Weightlifting
Burn Calories and Maintain Muscle
One benefit of weight lifting would be the fact that you can burn more calories lifting weights overall than you can by doing a bunch of cardio. When you lift weights, you are adding more muscle mass and which in turn, boosts your metabolism. Your body then begins burning fat at a rapid rate. While burning calories, you can also use strength training to maintain your muscle. As you age you start to lose muscle and then where you lose muscle you often replace it with fat. The best way to avoid this as best you can is to lift weights.
Lower risk of disease and increase heart health
Weight training can also be used as a preventative measure against many diseases. You can strengthen your heart with weight training and if you add cardio workouts to that, it will only maximize your benefits. Weight training will also improve the way that your body is processing sugar and can lower your risk of diabetes.
Psychological effects
Along with all of the physical benefits, there are many psychological benefits to weight lifting as well. Exercise induces the “pleasure” chemicals in your brain called endorphins and reduces levels of the stress hormone called cortisol. Women also say they get an increase in confidence when weightlifting. And I mean what woman wouldn’t get a confidence boost after lifting a bunch of weights especially when everyone is saying that women shouldn’t, or can’t lift weights! The last psychological but also physical benefit would be improved sleep. Weight training improves the amount and quality of sleep.
Where do I start?
So now you know that all of the stereotypes aren’t true, and the many benefits of weight training. Now you’re ready to start your weightlifting journey but are lost on where to begin. We’ve got you covered! To start, it all depends on your current level of fitness. The Physical Activity Guidelines of Americans recommends that you have at least 2 days per week of resistance training. You can start with low reps and sets and slowly start increasing the weight, reps, sets, or all 3 in order to progress and improve. Make sure that you remember that recovery is essential in weightlifting. But, if you still aren’t 100% confident, then you can seek the help of one of our certified personal trainers to get you on the right track and keep you from getting injured!
