One of the biggest myths that women need to overcome when it comes to their training is that lifting weights will make you big. The fear of becoming a female Arnold Schwarznegger or Sylvester Stallone is enough to make most women avoid going near a dumbbell. But lifting weights will not make you big. What it will do is:
Make you strong
Give you self-confidence
Optimise hormone regulation
Improve libido
Improve heart-health & respiratory system
Increase bone density and avoid osteoporosis
Speed up your metabolism and fat loss
Give you that bikini body you want for your holiday next summer
Still think it’s a bad idea?
Let’s get things straight. Muscle is extremely hard to grow and maintain, but very easy to lose. Ask a bodybuilder how easy it was for them to look like they do. It takes A LOT of dedication to look like that. Hours spent in the gym every day, as well as eating 5-8 meals per day on top of any supplements they may be taking. So why do so many women still think that by doing a few barbell squats they’re going to look like a she-Hulk?Here are 3 reasons:
You are carrying more body fat than you realise. That fat can make you feel bulky.
There is a temporary inflammation and nitrogen increase in muscle stores when you first start lifting weights. This gives you what is known as ‘the pump’ and fades soon after you’ve finished working out, but many women may fear they’ve doubled in size and stop.
Opinionated friends. There are lots of people who know nothing about the human body, but have very loud opinions. Sometimes people will tell you that you look bulky simply because they know you are doing weights. Or they are jealous. Unfortunately the power of other’s perception confuses many people.
But why won’t you get big and bulky? The main reason is hormones. Many hormones play a part in muscle growth, such as growth hormone, progesterone, oestrogen, but the most important one of muscle building is testosterone. On average, men produce around 6-10mg of testosterone per day. Compared with an average female, who produces around 0.5mg per day, it’s easy to see that women simply do not produce enough testosterone to support a bulky physique. I mentioned earlier that weight training can help with fat loss. So here is how it works. Keeping things nice and simple, muscle and fat are two completely different things. You can’t “turn fat into muscle” or “muscle into fat”. It is impossible. Forget it. Instead, think of muscle as your body’s engine. It is metabolically active tissue, which requires nutrients to sustain itself, and a very specific environment in order to grow. It provides function to the body so you can move.
Fat, on the other hand, is stored fuel. It is a dumping ground for all those cheeky cocktails, Maccy D’s and choccy digestives. Essentially, the leftover nutrients your body did not need to sustain itself go here, and until you increase the use of muscle and give your body somewhat less energy than it needs, the fat is here to stay!
By integrating weights into your workouts, you are opening up a whole new realm of possibilities for your workouts. You can vary weight, reps, speed, time, sets and tempo as well as the sheer number of different exercises you can do with a pair of dumbbells. This gives you the opportunity to introduce your body to new stress in each workout, which is exactly what it needs to change. Plus, varying your workouts breaks the monotony of doing the same thing on every trip to the gym and keeps you interested, especially when you start to see the results!
Get lifting ladies! You won’t regret it!
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