Times Have Changed for Women, Weights

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(Facebook/Fitness Girls)

“I don’t want to look like a man.” This is usually the response you get if you ask women why they don’t lift. Thank goodness this is slowly but surely changing.

Women have feared weights for too long. I’ll admit it; I used to be one of them, beyond timid at the thought of getting big and bulky from being in the gym with the boys. The fact that I was never a stick figure to begin with just made my fear even worse. Because I was uneducated, I believed that cardio was my best friend, and weight training my worst enemy. I wanted to look long and lean, not short and stocky.

During my final year of college, I finally realized (standing at 5’4) I would never be tall, and that’s ok! It doesn’t mean I can’t have a beautiful body. And I finally began to understand that to tone my body the correct way, I didn’t only need to do cardio.

I began working with a trainer and he taught me that weights are my friend. I’ve been lifting, really lifting for about ten months now. And take my word for it, muscle mass is so much harder to acquire than you think.

Don’t get me wrong, cardio is a great thing and should be a part of your workout regime. It keeps your heart in check and can help to shed unwanted weight. As women, we love the sound of fat melting off our body do we not? This is exactly why weights should be incorporated into our workouts! Muscle is imperative to lowering body fat and will help you continue to burn more calories once your workout is over. Try and tell me that sounds like a negative side effect…exactly.

Not only can lifting weights help women burn fat and tone their bodies, it goes a step further by helping with our bone mass. As women, this is very important due to the fact that our bones get weaker after having children and simply from aging. To help prevent osteoporosis even further, lifting will maintain your bone mass and some studies show that it may even increase bone mineral density.

To sum it up, lifting won’t make you manly, it’ll just make you sexy. You’ll be toned, strong, and more confident than you’ve ever been! But don’t take my word for it, go pick up some weights and find out for yourself, you won’t regret it.

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