This comes up a lot so I thought I’d share some things with you on why women should not only lift weights, but why they should be HEAVY and why “cardio” will not get you toned or give you firm butt.
- Bone density – directly & only correlated to how STRONG the muscles are – not impact, not calcium. That means the stronger your muscles the greater your bone density will be. No worries about Osteopenia (muscle loss due to age) or osteoporosis (bone loss due to age) and you shouldn’t need calcium supplements.
- Glycogen stores don’t get burned by women unless they are in glycolitic state – you get there by performing heavy resistance training – Cardio or using light weight and high reps doesn’t turn on the fat burning process. You should use a weight that will be one or 2 reps short of failure on all lifts. That means if you are doing sets of 5 the 5th rep should be very hard to complete but doable with correct technique. Don’t go so heavy your form suffers.
- Resistance training allows muscles to store carbs instead of fat cells – Lifting heavy lets the muscles pull carbs (energy) to them. This is why it’s ok to have a carb based meal or post workout recovery shake after lifting heavy. The carbs feed the muscles and also allows the protein in the post workout drink or meal to be better utilized for muscle building
- Resistance Training amplifies your metabolism which means you’ll burn more fat. Running, high rep low level resistance training or other long slow aerobic exercise suppresses T3 (a thyroid hormone) essential for fat burning. Low T3 lowers your ability to burn fat. Low level aerobics also makes you more efficient in terms of energy needed so you use fewer calories as you get better and the exercise. This is why you can feel wiped out after running 1 mile, but 2 weeks later 1 mile is easy and you get it done faster. Then the only way to burn more energy is to run longer distances. This process also tends to make your body burn more MUSCLE as fuel instead of fat.
- You won’t look like the female version of Arnold. Female Body Builders that look like men are either genetic freaks or are on male hormones. You will NOT/never/ever look like that!
- Most female runners are saggy with no muscle tone and actually have a high body fat percentage! If you run marathons or compete in triathlons heavy strength training will help maintain muscle mass, burn more fat & make you faster!
- Heavy resistance training give you firm toned muscles
So there you have it, 7 real reason why you need to lift heavy and stay away from “aerobics/cardio”
