Weight Lifting for Woman

For many years it was believed that weightlifting was only an activity to be done by men. And even then only by a special breed of males, who wanted to become superhuman examples of human perfection. Even as over the past few decades it has come to be generally accepted that weightlifting is something that has benefits for men other then the muscle beach crowd, still it has generally been looked upon as a male activity.

Women fear weightlifting. They think it will make them look too big, or “like men” They think weightlifting is only for the most athletic of women. Not true. Indeed there is a sport of female bodybuilding – but these women will be the first to tell you that they need to work extremely hard, probably twice or three times as hard, to gain that kind of physique as their male counter parts. Why? A simple biological fact – women do not make enough testosterone to build muscle as big or as quickly as men do.

So don’t worry about it ladies you can work out with weights and get phenomenal health benefits like losing weight and looking younger – yes I said “losing weight” and “looking younger” – by weightlifting! Lean muscle burns calories. Lean muscle is sexy. There is absolutely no reason why fitness conscious women, and I think today most are, needs to restrict her workouts to just cardio and aerobics.

Women can benefit form lean muscle mass as much as men. Biological fact number two – we lose muscle mass as we age, do nothing to replace it, we lose strength and tone and look and feel older.  Most Women also know that they are more susceptible to bone density loss than men, so they take calcium supplements. Weightlifting strengthens and builds not only muscle but bones. Studies in women, have shown that resistance training such as weightlifting cannot only prevent but in some cases can reverse the effects of osteoporosis.

 Ladies you want shape – you want a figure – building up the muscles of your shoulders and back will make your waist look smaller. And lets not forget about what weightlifting can do for the old Gluteus Maximus. You really want “Buns of Steel”? – Pump Iron!

Trainers do not suggest that women give up aerobics altogether. In fact a workout regimen that combines traditional cardio-aerobics and weightlifting is ideal. However one more point to note a recent study following women age 24-34 conducted by the Jon Hopkins University found that  women who lifted weights continued to burn calories sometimes up to 2 hours longer after the exercise then women who did a comparable period of aerobics.