Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Should Women Lift Weights Regularly?

By Howe Russ


Should women lift weights or will they wind up looking big and bulky, a look which most females don't want? Alongside HIIT, this is one of the most popular questions in fitness clubs today.

If you have been exercising for a while you'll already know that the mainstream fitness business has a new trend each year. More often than not, it's not actually a new method, it merely reverts to an old training style which had faded from popularity. After years of yoga, boot camps and kettlebells it's the return of resistance training combined with high intensity cardio. []

While it's fantastic that girls are no longer scared to ask trainers about resistance training, there are still a few old, useless myths which attach a negative stigma to it. This puts a lot of ladies off, despite not having any solid evidence behind it. These myths include:

* Resistance training is meant for men, and will make women bulky.

* Girls should only lift light weights.

* Girls should be doing very high reps to tone up, because lower reps will make them bigger.

* Avoid training your lower body if you do cardiovascular exercise, because it will give you bigger legs...

The four myths shown above have dogged the fitness industry for decades, despite being dis-proven many times! Despite the huge scientific advantages we have over the generations before us, if you walked into a health club today you'd probably still be able to find a lot of ladies who believe these myths to be true.

Are you ready for the facts? Resistance training is absolutely vital for any lady looking to tone up and achieve a lean physique. To put is quite simply, you should be doing it.

It would be easy to look at a female fitness competitor and presume that's what will happen to you if you train with barbells and dumbbells. But that would be as foolish as a man looking at Arnold Schwarzenegger and making the same presumption. Female's release much less testosterone than males, causing the muscle building process to be far harder. Female fitness competitors don't just go to the gym, they diet and supplement specifically to add size...

Moving from one weight to another isn't going to cause your body to develop massive muscles, so don't buy into that myth.

One of the biggest benefits of hitting the iron is fat loss. That's right, resistance training will push your fat loss results to a whole new level. It has a similar effect to high intensity interval training, causing your body to burn calories at an increased rate for up to 16 hours after you leave the gym.

So let's make our final verdict, should women lift weights or avoid them completely? Not only should they be using them, they should be using them regularly! The most recent science in the fitness industry confirms that regular resistance training and HIIT are one of the most effective methods for burning unwanted body fat and getting leaner.




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