The most common reason women aren’t resistance training is that they think they’ll get too bulky. I had demythologized this in my last blog,” weight Lifting for Women – is it good? “
Here I wanted to explain a little more regarding the importance of specificity of it.
When I use to work as a club manager in India, I used to sell cheaper membership to women. The funny thing I learned when I was selling memberships is that 70% of the discounts were given to womens.
This was because the men would get attracted to join with any membership price if they see many women working out in the gym during peak hours. The exciting part was it was situated near to a medical student’s hostels. You can guess the vibe.
Some marketing genius at the head office figured out this tactic, and we club managers at this gym chains were forced to do so, lol.
Anyways, the point I was trying to make is that to sell the discounted memberships to these students and general women in that area, I needed to convince them that they can lose weight better with resistance training.
It wasn’t easy as I thought initially. Still, they were convinced when I used to show the evidence-based results of the international beauty pageants like miss universe and miss world titleholders’ training routines.
I had come across a video of the woman who won Miss New York, and it showed her lifting routine to get her ready for the upcoming Miss Universe.
Let’s think about this for a second. If there is one competition where being TOO bulky for a female is not ideal, I’d imagine Miss Universe falls into that category.
They use to watch the workout video consisted of. HEAVY squats AND deadlifts.
In that video interview, she said she trained three times a week doing heavy compound lifts. Through her programming, she was taught that lifting weights and getting stronger doesn’t make a woman bulky.
Also, I mention the marketing gimmick between the terms “TONING” and MUSCLE BUILDING.
You can’t tone or shape a muscle. That means you built up an appreciable amount of muscle and then dieted down until the body fat removed made the muscle underneath show the way you wanted.
This remains why women should incorporate resistance training into their workouts. It gives you EXACTLY what you were looking for.
Resistance Training Improves Fat Loss At Rest
Burning 400-500 calories using a treadmill would work at first, but after 4 to 6 weeks body adapts to this (especially if you are dieting)
and eventually, the more often you do it, it starts burning less and fewer calories.
So that your body doesn’t waste all that excess energy to complete the task, it wants your body to be efficient.
Building muscle, on the other hand, sends the signal to burn more fat at rest. Muscle is calorically expensive to have.
It takes energy expended to keep more and more muscle. This is the total opposite end result compared to cardio.
Habitually fits this in to your Lifestyle
When you start to include resistance training into your daily life, your lifestyle is the biggest thing to keep in mind.
I don’t care if the excellent program says to train five days a week.
If you only have time for 2-3 days, then you will never stick with it.
Choose the regimen that you can see yourself still doing a year from now. This is a journey, not a quick fix. If you can’t see yourself doing it a year from now, then the change is too drastic.
Two days a week challenge.
If you want some guidance, start with just two days a week. If you feel like you can do more, then go for it. My suggestion is to hit a minimum of two workouts a week to gain momentum and accountability.
That way, if you did four workouts one week, three the next, and two the following, instead of seeing that as a loss for not staying consistent, you’ll have still hit the goal of two workouts.
Psychological wins mean a lot.
What you should regard this first month is that your arms feel tighter. You may see yourself looking “leaner” in the gym.
Your weight might not have changed, but you’ll swear something looks different about you.
That’s your body having a perfect exchange of gaining some muscle and burning some fat. Don’t worry about the scale!
If your numbers are going up and fuel your body correctly, your weight actually shouldn’t change that much.
That’s why you’ll notice the change but not be able entirely to figure out what it is. You ARE, in fact, losing weight; it’s just being replaced by muscle.
Those who are busy.
If you are a busy mom or have a busy schedule, it can be hard to get in the gym for an hour. If this is the case, try making a more circuit-based approach where you are still resistance training but following shorter rests in between.
I don’t suggest doing this all the time, as you ultimately want to be taking longer breaks between bigger lifts to allow you to push heavier weights, and thus a more significant response to weight lifting.
But for short periods, where your schedule doesn’t allow much time, making a more circuit-based approach while still using resistance training exercises (not box jumps and cardio movements).
You can still get a great workout in and get the muscle-building signal you are seeking.
If you think making a schedule for working out and planning the nutrition is a hassle. Here I am training busy professionals with a habitually based program that helps to reach their goals in no time.
Join the Online Coaching now!!
Cheers.
