Women Weightlifters
6 Reasons Why Women Should Lift Weights
There’s this belief that bad things will happen if a woman lifts weights. She’ll end up getting bulky, she’ll look more masculine, or it’ll be bad for her joints. None of that’s true. Here’s why you should start lifting today.
Fat Loss
Cardio has long been the preferred method many women use to burn fat. And it’s true that if you compare a 30-minute cardio session with a 30-minute workout, the cardio session burns more calories.
But that’s only during the workout. A pound of muscle burns more calories than a pound of fat. So over 24 hours, your body burns more calories maintaining muscle than it does from a cardio session.
After 24 weeks of strength training, one study found that women boosted their metabolism by 4%. Another study tracked women who did strength training two to three times a week for two months. When they finished, the average woman gained nearly two pounds of muscle but LOST 3.5 pounds of fat.
Strength Training Firms and Tones
When women workout, they don’t develop muscles the way men do. The simple reason is that women have significantly fewer hormones that cause muscle growth. Men who want to “get big” have to work hard to see gains, and it's doubly hard for women.
When you see a woman with large muscles, they’ve spent incredible effort to achieve that. They workout once or twice a day, maintain a rigorous diet, and sometimes take muscle-building drugs like steroids to compensate for their lack of testosterone.
Women tend to get lean and firm from drug-free weightlifting. Arms stop jiggling, and muscles tighten up.
Heart is Healthier
Resistance training reduces the chances women will get heart disease. Just like in men, lifting weights can help reduce blood pressure, lower triglycerides, and improve elevated glucose levels. All those conditions increase your risk of heart disease, so you’re lowering the odds of them hurting you when you work out.
Bones are Stronger
Here are some statistics from the Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation.
- Of the estimated 10 million Americans with osteoporosis, about eight million or 80% are women.
- Approximately one in two women over 50 will break a bone because of osteoporosis.
- A woman’s risk of breaking a hip is equal to her combined risk of breast, uterine and ovarian cancer.
Your best defense against osteoporosis is lifting weights. As women age, muscle mass decreases and bones become more brittle. Bones are strengthened during high-impact aerobics and weight training exercises. Just one year of resistance training can increase spinal bone mass by 9 percent. The sooner you start lifting weights, the better your chance of maintaining bone health.
Arthritis Symptoms Improve
Doctors used to advise people with arthritis to avoid exercise, believing that exercise could further damage the joints and worsen the situation. It turns out that’s not true.
The Institute for Behavioral Research in The Netherlands took patients with arthritis admitted to the hospital because of disease activity and; randomly assigned them to one of two groups. One group had three weeks of intensive exercise therapy when they were discharged. The other was given “usual care” when they left the hospital.
They found that the group with intensive exercise therapy had a “better quality of life at lower costs after 1 year.” And that was with only three weeks of exercise. Hundreds of studies have come to the same conclusion. Exercise improves muscle function in people with arthritis and does not affect disease activity.
Balance is Better
There’s a challenge called “The Old Person Test.” The idea is to try putting on socks and shoes while standing and balancing on one leg. Your leg muscles are unlikely to be strong enough to even attempt this without lifting weights.
A regular workout program improves the fast-twitch fibers we need for speed and power movements. Just two days of strength training a week can significantly improve your overall muscle mass and make you less likely to fall and injure yourself.
The bottom line: If you want to live longer, enjoy a stronger body and experience greater satisfaction with the quality of your health, find a way to start a regular weightlifting program.
Reference Links:
Effect of strength training on resting metabolic rate and physical activity: age and gender comparisons
J T Lemmer, F M Ivey, A S Ryan, G F Martel, D E Hurlbut, J E Metter, J L Fozard, J L Fleg, B F Hurley
Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 2001 Apr;33(4):532-41. doi: 10.1097/00005768-200104000-00005.
Minimal resistance training improves daily energy expenditure and fat oxidation
Erik P. Kirk, Joseph E. Donnelly, Bryan K Smith, Jeff Honas, James D. LeCheminant, Bruce W. Bailey, Dennis J. Jacobsen, and Richard A. Washburn
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2009 May; 41(5): 1122–1129. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0b013e318193c64e
Increasing muscle mass to improve metabolism
Alexandra C. McPherron, Tingqing Guo, Nichole D. Bond & Oksana Gavrilova
Adipocyte, Pages 92-98 | Received 02 Jul 2012, Accepted 09 Oct 2012, Published online: 01 Apr 2013 https://doi.org/10.4161/adip.22500
The effect of regular physical activity on bone mineral density in post-menopausal women aged 75 and over: a retrospective analysis from the Canadian multicentre osteoporosis study
Jeffrey M Muir, Chenglin Ye, Mohit Bhandari, Jonathan D Adachi, Lehana Thabane
BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, 2013 Aug 23;14:253. doi: 10.1186/1471-2474-14-253.
High-Intensity Resistance and Impact Training Improves Bone Mineral Density and Physical Function in Postmenopausal Women With Osteopenia and Osteoporosis: The LIFTMOR Randomized Controlled Trial
Steven L Watson, Benjamin K Weeks, Lisa J Weis, Amy T Harding, Sean A Horan, Belinda R Beck
Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 04 October 2017 https://doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.3284
The Impact of Different Modes of Exercise Training on Bone Mineral Density in Older Postmenopausal Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis Research
Gholam Rasul Mohammad Rahimi, Neil A. Smart, Michael T. C. Liang, Nahid Bijeh, Alsaeedi L. Albanaqi, Mehrdad Fathi, Arghavan Niyazi & Nasser Mohammad Rahimi
Calcified Tissue International, Published: 13 February 2020
Strength Training Improves Body Image and Physical Activity Behaviors Among Midlife and Older Rural Women
Rebecca A. Seguin, Galen Eldridge, Wesley Lynch, and Lynn C. Paul
Journal of Extension, PMC 2015 Mar 10.
Prescribing Physical Activity: Applying the ACSM Protocols for Exercise Type, Intensity, and Duration Across 3 Training Frequencies
Wayne L. Westcott, PhD, Richard A. Winett, PhD,James J. Annesi, PhD,Janet R. Wojcik, PhD, Eileen S. Anderson, Ed D & Patrick J. Madden, MD
The Physician and Sportsmedicine, Pages 51-58 | Published online: 13 Mar 2015 https://doi.org/10.3810/psm.2009.06.1709
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8/6/2022
