You’ve heard all the horror stories: lifting heavy weights make women bulky, it’s dangerous and it’s bad for your joints. These lies feed into the stereotypes that are preventing many women from experiencing the benefits of resistance training. Rest assured, weight training will not do any of these awful things to you.
Contrary to popular belief, lifting weights do not make women bulky or turn into hulk overnight. However, it will help you improve your posture, gain lean muscle mass, improve metabolism and body composition.
Five reasons why women should lift weights:
- Improve posture. By simply improving posture, you will look leaner and more confident. Pull your shoulders back and lengthen your spine.
- Burn more calories. The more muscle one has, the more calorie they burn at rest. Do you love food? We sure do.
- Bone and joint health. Resistance training is an excellent way to combat the loss of bone mass with age and lower the risk of osteoporosis. By activating and strengthening the muscles around your knee joint will prevent pain from walking up or down the stairs.
- Better shape. As you build muscle, your body begins to take shape. You may lose fat and muscle tissue with endurance activities, but lifting weights will help you burn fat and gain or maintain lean mass for better body composition.
- Being independently strong. Lifting those grocery bags? Holding a toddler in each hand? No problem.
Where do you start from here?
Now that we’ve cleared the air about weight training, it’s up to you to make the decision to engage in a more beneficial form of fitness and take your body to the next level. Find an Exercise Coach to create a customized workout program for you. This will help you get rid of any imbalances causing aches and pains in joints and soft tissue, target areas you want to tone and build muscle and prevent injuries. Having an exercise coach will help you reach your goals sooner. Get started with our 12-Week Challenge to summer.