Weight Lifting: Now That's Girl Power

Classic weightlifting offers many benefits, from reducing belly fat and stress to health and motor benefits. Here's a look at some of the benefits weight lifting has, especially for females:

• Due to the fact that women have less testosterone in their bodies, it is harder for them to put on mass. For this reason, lifting weight tends to make women's muscles more defined and firmer rather than bigger.
• Also, the fear of injury is often a reason why people shy away from classical strength training. Learning how to lift properly and not overdoing your exercises are key to avoiding injury. Make sure to learn how to lift correctly, and slowly add weight over time.
• Be gentle with your expectations. Choose your workouts based on your needs, and gradually build your routine to stay safe.

Reasons to Start Lifting

• Strength training burns more fat
  You often hear that you should start with endurance sports if you want to lose fat. However, if you only do endurance training, you will only lose weight. Only 75% of the lost weight is fat, but the rest is muscle. Since muscle mass affects your metabolism (more muscles need more calories), the chance of you gaining weight increases with each gram of muscle you lose. This means a combination of endurance and strength training is best for keeping weight off.
• You burn more calories
  Strength training increases muscle mass, which also increases your basic metabolic rate. This means that even while you're sitting around, you'll burn more calories than you would if you had less muscle mass. Studies have shown that the metabolism increases for 39 hours after strength training because the body needs the energy to repair or adjust the muscle fibres.
• Your clothes will fit better
  Between the ages of 30 and 50, the body loses about 10 percent of its muscle mass. This loss of muscle is usually compensated with fat, often in the hips and waist. Bulkiness is added because one gram of fat has 18% more mass than one gram of muscle. This means that it is easier to stay in shape long term if you lift weights and do cardio. Lifting defines your muscles for better overall looks.
• Exercise to de-stress
  Fit people's bodies contain fewer stress hormones than people who do not work out. In addition, our blood pressure drops back down to the average level more quickly after stressful situations than it does for people who do not exercise.
• Prevent osteoporosis
  Older people are especially susceptible to osteoporosis. This can be prevented with exercise. In just four months of weight training your bone density can increase. To keep this level of density, it is important to work out regularly.
• Healthier heart
  Strength training reduces diastolic blood pressure, resulting in a 40% reduced risk of stroke and a 15% lower risk of heart attacks.
• Longer life
  The University of South Carolina has found that regularly lifting weights is associated with a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer. Muscle mass also reduces the likelihood of developing a serious illness.
• It's fun!
  Weight lifting is simply fun because you can do so many different exercises, which keeps it from getting boring. Keeping records of your workout also helps you stay motivated and track your improvement. Reaching your goals is such a good feeling, we hope you're motivated to get out there and start working toward them!