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Weight Lifting for Women

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Fashion and fitness magazines perpetuate the myth that weight lifting isn’t for women. Females are steered away from the weights and toward Pilates, Yoga or Cross-fit classes. This is absurd – using barbells and dumbbells won’t make a woman look manly or less feminine.

The women splashed across covers of bodybuilding magazines with skin stretched tight over bulging muscles protruding from every inch seek that look. They train for years and often take male hormones specifically to acquire that appearance. Not for you? I don’t blame you.

A woman who trains with weights won’t get bulky unless she is consuming an excess number of calories. If a female is ingesting more food than she is using for fuel, she’ll bulk up regardless of whether or not she is picking up heavy objects.

Weight lifting for women makes sense for the same reasons as for men – it is the best way to be stronger and firmer. From Courtney Green, athlete and fitness consultant:

Lifting heavy weight, for both women and men, will cause a flurry of positive systemic changes throughout your body. Your muscles respond by growing (which will also increase metabolism), bones become denser, hormonal regulation improves (that means a much more manageable menstrual period for women, among many other positive benefits), your central nervous system responds by learning how to recruit more muscle fibers to contract on demand and it becomes more resilient to physical stress. Not to mention the real-life benefits of just being stronger. And these are just a few of the reasons why you should lift heavy.

Strength training is the best way to slim down and tone up. Building strength and muscle allows human beings to burn calories more efficiently. If women operate at a calorie deficit and train with heavier loads, they can transform a portion of their body fat into muscle the same way men can.

Which of those fits better into a pair of jeans?

Christopher Wharton, PhD, a certified personal trainer and researcher with the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University:

10 pounds of muscle would burn 50 calories in a day spent at rest, while 10 pounds of fat would burn 20 calories.

Men and women may hail from different pockets of our universe, but we share many similarities when it comes to training for sport and our fitness goals. We are family.

So bypass the hand weights and balance boards and build up to heavier weights. Don’t let archaic arguments scare you away from becoming leaner, firmer and healthier.

  • Colt

    Kap-I am not a crossfit fan but most Crossfit coaches are huge proponents of Olympic style lifting such as the Squat, Deadlift and Standing press. Most program their training from Bill Starrs 5×5 routine and advocate a very similar diet to yours called Paleo

    • Gabe Kapler

      Right. Very generally, Crossfit’s style is to drive the reps up and keep the heart-rate high, never allowing for full recovery, which I think is essential for building strength.

  • Matt

    Kap- Unrelated, but have a questions about your saying “sugar makes you fat”. What about natural sugars. For example milk and apples have a lot of sugar in them, but of course they aren’t artificially added. What is your stance on these? Do you drink a lot of milk?

    • Gabe Kapler

      Love this topic, Matt. I’ll make sure to post about it soon.

  • Angie

    Kap-I recently spent a year at a gym the specifically specialized in weight training and was geared by computer program to increase muscle mass. At the end of the year, I had actually lost strength and felt generally lousy. I suspect that this was due to the low fat/low calorie diet I was also on. I think it is important to feed your body protein especially when trying to build muscle, do you agree? Counting points and calories seems counterproductive.

    • Gabe Kapler

      I’m with you here, Angie. For me, the way I feel is dependent on the balance of nutrition, training and being outside with the nutrition element the most heavily weighted. Balance of fats, proteins and fruits and veggies with tons of water keep me feeling alert and strong. I’m guessing during that year, you had some nutritional deficiencies. I can’t think of a single logical reason why a weight training program would make you feel lousy, unless you were overtraining.

      Kap

  • Jen

    I disagree with your comments about CrossFit. Although we have many workouts with low weight more reps we also have several that focus on heavy weights. We have CrossFit total which is 3 attempts for max weight for shoulder press, back squat and Deadlift. My weights are 120lb shoulder press, 265lb back squat and 345lb Deadlift. We are not deterred or afraid of heavy lifting. We do several workouts with 5×5 lifts ect

    • Gabe Kapler

      Thanks for providing a counter, Jen.

  • Marty

    How does this approach change for someone over 60?

    • Gabe Kapler

      Which approach? Lifting weights? Pretty cool: “The American Journal of Medicine says you can. In the study, researchers examined several studies to find out if lifting weights is actually valuable for adults over 50. They found that, over 18-20 weeks, older adults gained an average of 2.42 pounds of muscle and increased their strength by 25-30%.”

  • Sooz

    When I was lifting a lot (I could dead lift 100 pounds and bench about close to that), I was more fit than I ever had been before. I also never did cardio as far as running or the elliptical. One day, I decided to change up my work out for the heck of it and ran on the treadmill — I ran further than I had ever before in my life and was in shock when I looked down at the read out screen. Even though I never did cardio, from lifting my endurance had built up better than ever.

    I still don’t run. :)

    • Gabe Kapler

      Pure gold, thanks for sharing.

  • http://www.maryreaganphoto.com mtkr

    It amazes me that people are still perpetuating the idea that weight lifting will bulk you up. It seems like such a 1990s (and earlier) idea.

  • http://myfoodfreedom.com Brittney

    Ah! I’ve been a yoga/Pilates girl myself but am ready and inspired to start a weight training program. Are there specific routines you recommend for women who are weight training? Or would you recommend the same general exercises that you would for men? Thanks!