When most women go to the gym, their main goal is to lose weight, and so there is the perception that weight training will just make them look more bulky. This isn’t true and you don’t have to be afraid to incorporate weight training into your gym sessions.
Women don’t look masculine and muscley when they exercise with weights because they do not have the hormonal make-up that men do. The lack of testosterone prevents women from being able to build as much muscle mass as men do. In fact, the only way women can end up looking like that is through drug use (steroids) and super intense, frenzied training. Weight training makes your muscles denser and they contain less marbleized fat, which means you actually look leaner.
Weight training is beneficial to those who are trying to lose weight as it can help build muscle AND lose fat. This is how it works:
In order to maintain strength, the muscle takes the calories from the food you consume, as a source of energy. This means that there are fewer excess calories being turned into fat. In fact, just by lowering your calorie intake by a little bit, the new muscle mass will eat up the existing body fat. However, be careful not to cut calories too much as your muscles will start to shrink and the body will start to fear starvation and begin to store extra fat.
Lifting weights is an anaerobic exercise which means your heart rate will increase and remain that way, even in the rests between reps. When lifting weights, the last 3 to 4 reps should be difficult to do, if they are too easy the aerobic effect will still be there but your muscle mass won’t increase sufficiently.While cardio exercises have been said to be the ultimate fat burner, building muscle helps you burn body fat for longer than just the exercise session, so you can still be burning calories 24 hours after a session, which you are unable to do with cardio.
Here are some interesting facts about weight lifting:
- Properly warming up before exercise and cooling down afterwards can give you an increased heart rate for up to an hour.
- People who lift weights sleep better; this is because the body repairs itself during restful periods.
- Using scales to gauge your progress with weights isn’t as effective as using a tape measure to track your progress because your muscle weight can make it seem like you’re not losing anything, whilst measuring yourself every 2 weeks can reveal the results you have worked hard for and can be an excellent source of motivation in your weight loss journey.
- Lifting heavy weights maintains bone mass but also builds new bone, helping prevent osteoporosis.
- Lifting heavy weights and building your strength comes with big self esteem boost when your lean, toned body is revealed from training hard.
So what are you weighting for? Ask someone who works at your local gym on how to use the weights safely and effectively for your weight loss goals and get lifting!