Lifting iron for women is considered unusual or awkward for many, even by women themselves, mainly due to the fear of earning muscular appearance and losing their feminine.
If you are one of those people, read this article and you’ll be surprised how weight lifting is not only beneficial, but also necessary for women! Get to know these 9 reasons to get you starting with lift iron.
1- You won’t get bulky like Hulk
First I want to assure you that you won’t get muscular like male bodybuilders over night; and the reason behind that that you simply don’t have enough testosterone (muscle building hormone) in your system.
Children -males and females- have similar testosterone levels 20-60 nanogram/100 ml, and upon puberty; males’ levels rise up to 300-600 nanogram/100 ml, whereas it stays at 20-60 value in girls.
Now about the actual existence of female bodybuilders, they become like that due to following strict workout programs and using hormonal supplements, but that wouldn’t happen to women performing most regular training even with supplements use.
2- Stronger bones
Bone building starts at early ages, and in girls specifically they develop 85-90% of bone mass during childhood and adolescence. By the time a girl reaches 20ies, most of her bone mass building is complete, but bone density continues to increase until the beginnings of 30ies.
Aside the importance of getting enough calcium and vitamin D, doing weight-bearing exercises has huge positive effect in preserving bone density and strength while getting older, hence lowering the chances of osteoporosis which is usually more common in women.
3- Burning more calories, disposing fat faster
One of the -sadly- spread misunderstanding about cardio is that it is the only way to burn fat and lose weight, that’s why you see most women in gyms waiting turns on treadmill and cycle machines, ignoring free-weights and resistance exercises.
It is right that cardio is awesome, but it certainly not the only way to go; although it burns calories while doing it, it barely rises metabolism speed after you’re done.
Weight lifting (or resistance training) on the other hand, has bigger influence on fat burning because it increases your basal metabolic rate, hence enabling you to burn more calories even after exercising.
4- Stronger heart
Many studies have proven that doing weight-bearing exercises 2-3 days a week has significant positive effect on strengthening your heart (the most important muscle in your body) and increasing its efficiency in pumping blood, which would lower the risk of many chronic heart problems.
5- Sexier body curves
Even if you lost weight (i.e. fat) using excellent diet, your couldn’t acquire nicely-flowing body curves as you would if you followed a moderate workout routine that contains strength exercises, that’s because they lift and tone your muscles and tighten the skin above it.
6- Reducing muscle loss with aging
People naturally lose their muscle mass gradually with aging, which is known as Sarcopenia; it starts with the 4th decade of age, and speeds up after the middle of 7th decade.
There are multiple factors that affect the speed of sarcopenia such as hormones, protein synthesis and lifestyle including physical activity level, and strength training specifically. The later wouldn't stop muscle mass lose completely, but it would slow it down.
7- Stronger body, more tolerance
There is no logical behind the general weakness impression about girls; even while maintaining your feminine, your should have enough strength that enables you from tolerating daily life pressure and tasks and preventing exhaustion.
8- Better sleep, less insomnia, bigger confidence
Many studies point that exercising in general, and strength training in specific reduces insomnia, improves mode and sleep quality, in addition to improving body image for the previous reasons that we mentioned earlier.
9- You can do it without equipment or gym membership
Last but not least; performing strength exercises doesn't necessarily need equipment, you can do it using your own body weight.
by fkhry via Bodybuilding.com Forums - Female Bodybuilding