Weight training for women

Many women think that they will end up muscle bound if they lift more than the lightest of dumbbells.

Actaully you WON'T!!!

Unless you make it your life's mission to do so and possibly resort to measures that I would not say.

It is OK and safe for women to lift heavier weights on resistance machines or better yet on free weights. Women are much more likely to get better and quicker results from increasing the amount of weights they lift. It will improve their body shape, funtional strength to do daily activities, and reduce body fat.

Just what every woman wants!!!

Why is it better to add weight exercises to your fat loss program?

You have probably read all sorts of things in mags and heard various ways to lose weight from friends and the so called experts in the gym, but you are not going to like this, long slow slow boring cardio takes forever to get results.

After a cardio session, the body recovers very quickly, so the only time you are burning calories is actually when you are on whatever machine you are on. Instead of doing long boring cardio try some high intensity interval training (HIIT). A simple 20 minutes of intervals work wonders. When you do your intervals make sure it is a very high intensity of about 80-90% of you MHR (max heart rate) or on a scale of 1-10 and ten being hard you need to be at least 8-9.

When you add your resistance program to your HIIT workout, you can burn calories up to 24hrs later from this same workout.

Isn't that great!!

Because you are working in your anaerobic threshhold, your metabolism reamins elevated when you have finished your workout. This afterburn is called excess post-exercise consumption (EPOC). So while you are relaxing on the sofa you can be still burning those calories from your session earlier that day.

Why free weights?

• free weights are more funtional than fixed weights
• you go through a greater range of movement
• greater selection of exercises
• can be adated to any person
• quicker results

What should I do?

Women should lift heavier weight as I said earlier. For greatest results you should change your program every 4 weeks and vary the reps and sets each week. This will keep things fresh and you would not get bored.

Variety is the spice of life!!!

Your reps and sets over a 4 week cycle will look like this:

Wk 1: 3 sets 8 reps
Wk 2: 4 sets 6 reps
Wk 3: 6 sets 4 reps
Wk 4: 3 sets 12 reps

Make sure to work to overload your muscles. Overload refers to the point when you find it difficult to do your last couple of reps without cheating or using bad technique. Doing this will chalenge your muscles to get the best results.

Lastly, working bady parts, like your tummy, in an attempt to reduce fat is not the best workout strategy. You CANNOT 'spot' reduce fat. You will get teh best results from a workout program that work your large muscle groups, such as push ups, squats, lunges, dead lifts.... All these exercises recruit more than one muscle group working at the same time.

So there you go. You know what you need to do so get cracking. Go have a great workout now.

Until next time.....

Stay Strong, Stay Focused and Keep Faith

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