It is good to see that more and more women are turning to weight training as another means to shape their bodies beyond the usual lengthy cardio sessions and crunch after crunch while at the gym. However, there are still too many of you ladies out there that still have not embraced one of the most important fat loss tools available to you. The common misconception is that lifting weights will make women appear bulky and muscular like a man. This is simply not the case as you do not have the level of testosterone in your body to create that effect. Strength training for both men and women can have amazing health benefits and help to give you the sexy body that you desire. You’ve thought about the reasons you don’t want to lift weights but here are a few reasons why women should lift weights.
1. Strength
Now you might have no desire to become a powerlifter but strengthening your body through weight training can help make your daily life easier to get through physically and reduce the risk of injury. Weight training not only builds strength in your muscles but also in your joints which can help to reduce the daily pains you may already experience or could face in the future.
2. Fat Loss
This site is dedicated to achieving ripped abs and in order to do that fat loss must occur. Aesthetically speaking men and women may want different things from abs training. Men want to have a ripped six pack but women might just want a toned and flattened stomach. Either way fat loss is essential for both body goals and lifting weights provides plenty of it. If you are on a diet and doing lots of cardio to burn fat, then you will inevitably lose muscle mass which means you are burning less calories.
Learn to love this fact: the more muscle you have the more fat you will lose. This is true throughout the day even while you’re resting. Now like I said women will not get bulky from lifting weights but you can expect some size increase in the muscle tissue. The good thing is that this muscle usually just replaces the fat you’ve burned off or your body simply maintains the muscle tissue you already have but you still see strength increases. Think of it as getting toned and not adding bulk.
3. Health
Believe it or not exercise is more than just an ability to make yourself look better. Weight lifting can benefit your joints, strengthen your muscles, reduce bone loss as you age, improve cardiovascular function and can tremendously benefit your mood. Weight lifting is a great way to boost your confidence and promote better mental health and clarity. Noticing the change in not only your body’s shape but seeing the amount of strength and endurance you have gained by lifting weights is a nice reminder of the progress you’ve made and a motivation to keep going.
4. Tone and Shape
Want a great butt? How about sexy arms and legs? While cardio is great for losing fat in these areas if you really want the ability to shape your body into a certain look then weight lifting is the way to go. Cardio and diet alone can often result in your body having the skinny fat look or just being plain skinny. For curves and shape to be maintained muscle mass needs to be preserved and added to.
Ladies if you want a great bikini body and a nice set of abs to show off then you need to get over you hesitancy to enter the weight room. Whether your resistance training is free weights or machines or a mixture of both (I recommend) the benefits to your body’s look and it’s health are too much for you to avoid it any longer.