I made a decision to never take any offered help and to prove them all wrong by being able to lift heavy weights right alongside the best of them. Ok, so I was never going to bench press 120kgs! But I did eventually manage to leg press 160kgs and that shut a lot of the naysayers up;)
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| Hehe... |
But seriously, I think there are three main reasons why women stick with cardio machines and avoid weights. One: It is a bit intimidating to walk into the weights section when you are not sure what you are supposed to be doing and you don't want people to realise you're actually clueless. It's safer to just stick with what you know. Two: You have been told, and you've read in many magazines, that LOTS of cardio is the best way to burn fat and so you prefer to do what "works". So your gym session consists of 20 minutes on the treadmill, 20 minutes on the stair climber and 20 minutes on the bike, ie. lots and lots of cardio. Three: You are a woman and you prefer to look like one. You don't want to turn big and muscular like a man.
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| There you have it folks! |
I can relate to, and acknowledge the first reason, but two and three are complete fallacies and I'll tell you why.
As far as the second reason goes, if you do all of those cardio machines, for an hour, every day of the week, you will burn some fat, there's no question. But if you keep doing the same thing day in and day out, your body is going to get rather accustomed to that kind of movement and you will eventually hit a wall. After that, you can carry on running until the free-range cows come home, but not much is going to change except that, eventually, your joints are going to complain bitterly from all the pounding away on that treadmill. So, if you have been doing the same thing at the gym for a year, and wondered why you still look the same, that's why!
As far as the third reason goes, honey, if body builders could build muscle as easily as YOU think you can, they'd just do what you do and forget about the hectic diets, and the supplements, and the hours, upon days, upon weeks, upon months, upon years that they spend in a gym to get the bodies that they have! It's not going to happen to you, I promise. Women aren't predisposed to building loads of muscle. Believe me, I tried! I was pushing some seriously heavy weights and I still have little peas for biceps;) Unless you are an elite athlete, you can cast that worry aside right now.
Now, as far as the first reason goes, the one that I can relate to, I get it! I do. But, at some point you are going to have to bite the bullet and give it a shot. Get yourself a gym partner who has at least SOME idea of weights so you don't have to go it alone. If necessary, sign up with a personal trainer for a month just to show you the ropes and make you feel like you can survive the free weights jungle alone.
Some of you are saying, "Why should I bother? The experts say the main thing is to keep moving and I'm moving on a treadmill!" True. You are. But exercise is not about focusing on ONE component. You don't only run or walk in life, do you? Think about natural movement. It involves carrying stuff and picking up things and sometimes there's jumping and dancing and bending over and twisting to the side while picking up stuff. It all depends on what you are doing but I bet you do most of those movements in an average week? I believe that exercise should mimic (as close as possible) the movements we make often in our daily lives and that will make us better equipped to handle things in our daily lives, for a lot longer than it would if all we did was run.
For example, a pregnant woman towards the middle and end of her pregnancy, is going to be carrying a heavy weight in front of her for several months. She should be focusing on strengthening her back, to avoid backache and strengthening her leg muscles to allow for the extra weight they will be carrying as well. And once she has had that child, pretty much the rest of her days will be spent doing everything with one hand while she holds a child in the other. That means strengthening her arms to equip her for that as well. Carrying a baby chair, with a baby in it, and trying to hold your older child's hand while you try to get somewhere, is NOT easy. Most women I know are going to be, or are already, moms. Wouldn't it be good to actually be able to carry all that stuff from the get-go, without feeling like you are going to die of exhaustion? Also, if your job involves you travelling a lot, and carrying heavy luggage, shouldn't you be working on your arm strength? Lifting that bag into the overhead compartment isn't easy and there isn't always a strong man around to help! One of my main motivations for getting stronger was that I had heavy music equipment to lug around and I point blank refused to wait for a strong man to come along and help! Those speakers way a TON. SO That is just a couple of examples, but hopefully you get where I am going with this?
There is another, very important reason, to start doing some weight-bearing exercises. One word: Osteoporosis. There is no GOOD reason why so many women should be getting osteoporosis, except that they don't do weights. Doctors will tell you to take calcium supplements. I personally believe that you should be eating a diet that gives you enough calcium through nutrient-dense food. It IS possible to do. BUT, what doctors should also be telling you is that, if you don't challenge your muscles, and your bones, by making them work hard, and often, your bones will eventually start being reabsorbed by your body until you are pretty much left with shells and that is when they become brittle and break easily. At best, you will have a terribly rounded back, at worst, a broken hip.
It's a well known fact that women suffer from osteoporosis more than men. We have our hormones to thank for that. But I believe a large part of the reason is also that women never do weight bearing exercises. In the past, they had a big strong man to carry and lift and they never had to lift a finger. Muscle, on a woman, wasn't attractive. These days women are more independent, but they are still not doing any carrying and lifting because they believe they don't need muscles, they just need to do cardio because now it's all about being skinny.
Let me explain what happens when you do weights in an easy nutshell. If you challenge your muscles by lifting weights, you actually cause microscopic tears to happen in your muscle. It sounds awful, I know. But by damaging them, you challenge them to, not only repair themselves, but to grow bigger and stronger. The same applies to your bones, because muscles are attached to bones and bones would not be able to move if it wasn't for muscles. When you lift a weight, the bone attached to your muscle, also takes strain. Your body is very intelligent. It acknowledges that more strength is going to be needed in the future to be able to do that again and handle it better. So your bones make themselves stronger to compensate. If your bones are constantly being challenged, they will keep growing strong and you will, more than likely, not end up with osteoporosis.
Here's another good reason to do weights: Have you ever noticed how men just have less body fat than women? That's largely because they have more muscle than women. Muscle is metabolic, fat isn't. If you have more muscle than fat, on your body, your body will literally burn fat while you are sitting down. So men can eat what they want, and look the same, for many years, until the beers start to catch up and the muscle starts to disappear. It doesn't stay forever if you don't maintain it. That's why men will, eventually, start to gain weight no matter how thin they were when they were younger. It just starts a bit later in life for them. For women, it starts in their 20s because, let's face it, they had almost NO muscle to start with. So they will start gaining fat as soon as their metabolism starts to slow down, which usually starts in their late 20s. You need to keep that metabolism burning by building some muscle!
When I say you need to do weights, I don't mean just do a few butt crunches and stomach crunches, also favourites of women! Doing stomach crunches won't give you a flat stomach I promise! You need to do exercises that are going to hurt a bit. Have you ever done walking lunges and then tried to walk normally the next day? Can anyone say John Wayne;) You are going to have to strain yourself a bit to feel the benefits. If you don't challenge your muscles, there isn't much point. Your body will not feel the need to improve itself in any way and will stay the same.
It all sounds complicated but it's not really that complicated. I will spend the next few days giving you some pointers. If you are stuck, you are more than welcome to come to me for some personal training and I will get you started;)
Humans beings were born to move. We weren't meant to be sedentary, and yet, so many of us are. It's all very well to say that you don't like exercise, but really, you don't have too much of a choice if you want to live a long, healthy life.
Need I say more?
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