Why More Women Should Lift Weights

Good morning everyone!! Are we enjoying our Hump Day so far? 🙂

It really doesn’t matter to me, that just means that my Spring Break is half over already. 🙁 Why does it always fly by?! Oh well. Let’s talk about lifting weights, shall we? 

Wait hold on…can I just show you the lunch I had yesterday with my good friend Kat? We’re both hummus-fiends, if you couldn’t tell…

Why yes. That is the greatest hummus you will ever have in your life, not to mention the warmest and softest pita. A bowl of hummus plus a pita and some pickled veggies = the greatest lunch in the WHOLE WORLD. 

Alright, back to your regularly scheduled post.

Maybe you’ve thought about lifting weights. Maybe you’ve even done some dumbbell curls or picked up a barbell. Every time you hit the iron though, you feel unsure, insecure, and a little fearful. Believe me, I know. You can’t walk past a weight room without feeling even a little intimidated. You’ll see these big guys staring at themselves in the mirror and checking out their guns and looking around at the other guys to see what they’re doing. I’ll see a few women in there too which makes things less awkward. When I walk in, however, the iron-pumpers are totally thinking, “what the heck is this tiny girl gonna do?” 

Oh yeah?! WATCH ME, BOYS. WATCH ME.
(As I proceed to pick up my 5 and 10 pound weights).

First things first: Muscles are beautiful and there is no reason anyone should be ashamed to work on them, especially females.

Unfortunately, you’ve probably heard the horror stories: lifting heavy weights makes women bulky, it’s dangerous, it’s bad for your joints, and once you have muscle, you can’t stop lifting or it will all turn to fat. It’s all BS, and it feeds into stereotypes that are keeping too many women from experiencing the huge benefits of resistance training. Everyone is allowed to have muscles, and literally no one should tell you differently. That being said, we know that everyone has different body composition goals, so if yours don’t include bigger muscles — but you still want to lift weights and get stronger — read on! 🙂 Time to put that fear and uncertainty aside. The fact is that lifting weights does none of those awful things. What it does is help you to live in a healthier, stronger body. I’m living proof! After I stopped running, I did some research on doing more strength training and I’ve been amazed at how much better I feel! 🙂 It’s also really helped my dancing. Standing leg exercises are EVERYTHING.

1. As a woman, you probably won’t get bulky, bulging muscles (unless you work really hard to do so).

Most women always worry about being “too bulky”. Here’s the thing: putting on serious size and bulk really requires a training and nutrition plan geared towards those specific goals, along with a hormonal response that makes it happen relatively easily (more on all that in a sec).

2. The average woman’s hormone levels don’t enable muscle growth the way men’s do.

An increase in muscle size, or hypertrophy, occurs when, among other things, strength training creates a hormonal response that promotes muscle growth. The hormones in question here are testosterone and growth hormone. Don’t ask me though, ask the expert, Heather Milton who works at NYU’s Sports Performance Center. So even if you’re lifting weights like crazy, you need to actually have enough of those hormones available to cause your muscles to get bigger. Having less testosterone makes it harder and makes it take longer to gain as much muscle mass as men.

3. “Getting swole” requires some pretty specific strength training protocols.

It’s pretty hard to accidentally get big, strong muscles. You’ll need to do compound movements like squats, presses, and deadlifts — which use the largest muscle groups in your body to move the most amount of weight. You’ll also need to do accessory lifts like rows and dips to strengthen the muscles that support the bigger lifts. Then there are other special techniques that can help you gain muscle, like: performing reps slowly so you’re spending more time using your muscle, tweaking rest periods, and doing special sets like drop sets or cluster sets.

4. You typically have to eat a lot.

If your workout and your hormones are tied for first in terms of things that will help you put on big muscles, how much you eat comes second. You’d need to eat a lot more than the average person would eat on a daily basis if her goals were simply to maintain her weight, have energy for her workouts, and feel great. So the odds are very slim that you’re accidentally eating enough to support huge gains.

5. I know, everyone is different. Some women are “easy gainers.”

Holly Perkins, certified strength and conditioning specialist and author of Lift To Get Lean, says that just because the average woman doesn’t put on the same kind of muscle as most men, doesn’t mean women can’t do it at all. She estimates that about 15-25% of women are “easy gainers”, meaning their muscles get bigger quickly and they can put on size more readily than most.

Perkins also mentions that, “if you start to see clear and obvious changes to your physique within six weeks of starting to strength train, you might be an easy gainer”. If you’re an easy gainer who doesn’t want big muscles, DON’T FREAK OUT. You can still lift weights!

6. Want to get stronger without looking super muscular? All you have to do is adjust the way you strength train.

Circuit training, or doing lots of reps and little rest, is what Perkins recommends. The idea is to move from one exercise to the next, only taking rest between circuits (not between each exercise), and then repeating the circuit a few times. It’s a killer! If you keep moving and keep your heart rate up while you lift, you’ll be getting stronger, fitter, and leaner and not working towards bigger muscles.

7. If you still aren’t convinced, know that having muscle is actually really good for you.

Strength training has so much potential to help you with many health and fitness goals, from weight loss to running a faster half marathon to improving your yoga practice and reducing your everyday aches and pains. Plus, muscle tissue is great for your health and makes your metabolism more efficient! Nothing beats strength training when it comes to working towards a curvalicious body either. Ladies, LOVE YOUR CURVES! Take your butt, for example. While bodyweight exercises like glute bridges and hip thrusts will give you that burn in your glutes, it’s weighted exercises like deadlifts, squats, weighted lunges, and split squats that will make your glutes bigger and stronger and more ~shapely~. Win-win!!!

In conclusion, happy lifting ladies!

Today’s “March (Into) Happiness” thought of the day:

March 2nd:
“In every community there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power to do it”.
Marianne Williamson