Afew months ago, I told a friend I was weight lifting with the help of a personal trainer. “Don’t do that, she said. You’ll gain weight and get all bulky.” Once again, I was hit with the kind of misinformation prevents strength training for women from becoming more popular. Such falsehoods can prevent women from achieving their fitness goals.
First of all, muscles are good on men and women. Strength training exercise not only makes us stronger, but it raises our body’s metabolic activity. One pound of lean muscle burns up to 50 calories per day; one pound of fat burns nine calories a day. It’s a bit counter intuitive but what this boils down to is that building muscle through strength training will help you lose fat/weight simply because muscle burns more calories than fat does.
Here is a study that may be of interest. The American Journal of Cardiology published a breakthrough study in which researchers compared the effectiveness of aerobic exercise with strength training programs to just aerobic exercise.
Both groups completed the program in ten weeks: the first group completed 75 minutes of aerobic exercise two times a week; while the other group performed 40 minutes of aerobics and 35 minutes of strength training. At the end of the study, the group who did just aerobic exercises increased their endurance by 11 percent, but showed no increase in strength. The group that combined cardio and weights showed a 109 percent increase in endurance and a 21 – 43 percent increase in overall strength.
The study proved that that weight training is a main component for increasing women’s endurance and strength.
A valuable way to increase lean muscle mass is to eat the proper foods at the correct times. According to sports dietician and author Nancy Clark, you’ll reach your fitness goals faster if you eat some carbohydrates and a little protein ten minutes before exercise. Carbs provide fuel needed for energy and endurance; the body breaks protein down into amino acids, which help repair muscles after the workout ends.
After a long and hard workout, many muscle fibers have ripped and torn, while glycogen levels have gone down and cortisol levels have increased – all a recipe for further muscle damage and breakdown. Eating a decent portion of protein after exercising reverses this process by repairing and strengthening your body’s muscles.
And if you really want to develop more muscle while losing fat, you must sleep. Not getting a good night’s slumber will make you fatter than your more rested counterparts. Lack of sleep interferes with your body’s ability to recover after a strenuous workout. Too little rest can also wreak havoc among the hormones that regulate your metabolism and fat storage. Studies have shown that sleeping less than five hours a night reduces levels of leptin by 15 percent – which slows metabolism – and increases ghrelin by 15 percent – which increases hunger.
Most important, men have eight times more of the hormone testosterone than women; so no matter what, strength training for women will never cause us to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger – more like Marilyn Monroe who maintained her feminine and curvy body by lifting eight-pound weights.
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