Women tend to go to cardio first when it comes to fitness and weight loss. Cardio is all well and good, it increases endurance, burns calories and improves cardiovascular efficiency. I’m all for anything that gets you moving!
However, ladies I’m talking specifically to you, DON’T BE AFRAID TO LIFT WEIGHT.
Weight training offers some serious benefits! One of them is efficiency and I know we mamas need that! You workout more effectively in a shorter amount of time!
Here are 7 more of them:
Burn More Calories: By increasing muscle mass you increase your resting metabolic rate. That means you burn more calories doing anything and everything. Even just sitting here reading this blog post 😉
Shrink Your Waist: I want to stress this one because I hear a lot of woman say that don’t lift because they don’t want to add bulk. You will not get bulky, weight lifter style muscles unless you live in a weight room. Women only have a fraction of the muscle building testosterone that men do. In fact, you will see your dress size go down (even if the weight on the scale doesn’t) because muscle is more dense (takes up less space) than fat.
Strengthen Your Bones: Bones are living, growing tissue just like muscle. Weight-bearing exercise increases bone mass by forcing it to work against gravity. Individuals who regularly strength train achieve a higher peak bone density than those who don’t. Bottom line, your 90 year old self with thank you 😉
Increase Flexibility: New studies show that full-range resistance training workouts can improve flexibility just as well typical static stretching. The key being: FULL RANGE. If you can’t complete the full motion—going all the way up and all the way down—with a given weight, you may need to use a lighter dumbbell and work up to it.
Improve Joint Pain: I hear this one a lot: “I can’t do squats and lunges because I have bad knees.” The fact of the matter is, if you continue to avoid those motions you will continue to have bad knees (or any other joint). Focus on form, modify if necessary, but DO NOT avoid strengthening those muscles. Strong muscles surrounding the joint will protect the joint and decrease pain with motion.
Improve Athletic Performance: Run faster, harder, longer because you will have a stronger core and more powerful arms and legs. You might not even notice as many hills out on your run.
Feel Empowered: Continually challenging yourself to try new things in your workouts, especially things you didn’t know you could do, increases your confidence in all aspects of your life! Try it and see 🙂
Bonus: You don’t even have to leave your living room!
Now go grab a set of dumbbells during nap time and try this workout! Then check back next time to learn how to use the choose right weight and method to reach your goals!
