There are numerous advantages for women who lift weights. If you are one of those who is still afraid of looking manly as a result of weight training I hope to wipe that fear out now.
Women who lift weights gain curves that enhance the female physique, making the overall look more feminine, rather than masculine. Don't let the ESPN Female Bodybuilders scare you. Those women take male hormones, and work at achieving that manly look all day long. It will not suddenly happen to you simply by lifting moderate to heavy weights three to four times per week. I promise.
Advantages
- Weightlifting allows you to fulfill your physical potential. As mentioned earlier, the heavier stress of bodybuilding training causes your body to make physical changes very rapidly and to much greater extent than any other type of exercise. Only through systematic bodybuilding can you exact the changes in appearance and strength that allow you to fulfill your physical potential. completely.
- Weightlifting greatly improves your health and physical fitness. Any type of exercise will improve health and overall fitness, but lifting weights does it quicker and to a greater extent than other forms of workout. Normal weight training has been criticized for not increasing aerobic fitness to the same degree as running, swimming, cycling, and other aerobic activities. But by using a special form of weight workout called "circuit training", you can dramatically improve your aerobic conditioning as you increase strength and improve your physical appearance.
- Bodybuilding helps to normalize body weight and greatly improves physical appearance. If you are either over or underweight, you can combine bodybuilding training with a specific type of diet that either aids in losing or gaining weight normalizing your body weight, you will drastically change the appearance of your body.
- Lifting weights gives you a valuable reserve strength to meet life's emergencies. If noting else, weight training will make you much stronger than you have ever been, which will allow you to meet traumatic, life-threatening situations with an increased chance of survival. Trust me on this one. The confidence that comes from knowing your body is strong can be a heady feeling.
- Weightlifting allows the use of an unlimited range of weight resistance.
- Lifting weights allows you to stress specific muscles in relative isolation from the rest of your body. This is what I call spot training. When a typical dieter reduces the amount of calories she normally consumes she will shrink. That is all she can hope to do. If her shape is awful, being a pear shape, then if she is successful at dieting she will become a smaller pear shape. One can not hope to lose it only in the waist and transfer the fat to our rear. Not with dieting that is. But, when lifting weights we are actually sculpting our body and we have total control to work our shoulders harder than any other body part in order to add a beautiful V shape. Or we can work the rear end super hard and heavy creating a nice round rear end. It you are a control freak, you will love lifting weights once you have begun to see the beautiful results.
- Weightlifting develops valuable personal qualities that carry over well into everyday life. Self-discipline, goal -orientation, and the ability to work hard in pursuit of a goal work well in other situations in life.
The way you describe advantages of weightlifting on women is quite attracative. But what about some side effects that it has on women. I'm about Amenorrhea. This deases occurs nearly 20 times more frequently in female athletes compared to the general population. Amenorrhea occurs when a woman of reproductive age misses menstrual cycles for 90 consecutive days or more. Amenorrhea reduces estrogen production and increases testosterone, which leads to an increase in facial hair and a decrease in breast size. Additionally, this puts the woman at greater risk for developing osteoporosis.
ReplyDeleteDo you consider it a really risk or we should not pay attention on it?
Thank you very much for your highly informed health conscious, comment.
ReplyDeleteAmenorrhea is most definitely not something to ignore.
Weight lifting alone does not really cause this problem, but I have often heard the most highly educated people linking the two. This is because lifting weights is exercise, and excessive exercise leads to a low body fat percentage that will/can result in amenorrhea.
Weight lifting by itself cannot cause a low body fat percentage. It is really a different type of exercise, that is not classified as cardiovascular. A person can quite easily workout with weights a lot and not lose any weight. Their physique will greatly improve, but they can still weigh the same due to burning fat, and using that energy to increase muscle mass. To simplify the concept, its like redistribution of your curves. Its all still there, but nicer.
Professional female bodybuilders however, can experience amenorrhea because they not only lift weights, but they go on extreme diets before competitions. So, the culprit is not the weight lifting, but the lack of sufficient calories to sustain at least a 20% body fat percentage.
If you are not an extreme dieter, you will lessen your chances of osteoporosis by lifting moderate to heavy weights.
So, if you are simply adding weight lifting to your work out routine, yu will not have to worry about amenorrhea. But if you plan on becoming a pro bodybuilder, it may become issue for you.