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The Facts and Myths to Women’s Weight Training

November 19th, 2009 AverageWeightForWomen No comments

What are the myths and misconceptions for women who weight train can they really build natural muscle like a man?

Basic Rules of Strength Training

Whoever is lifting the weight, be it male or female, the old rule will apply. So let’s get the facts straight right now and move on:

- Heavier weights performed with less repetitions will build muscle mass

- Lighter weights performed with more repetitions will build endurance, tone the muscle group worked without building mass

The average woman will experience a 20 – 40 percent increase in strength when lifting weights after several consecutive months of resistance training.

The same can be said for women that indulge in aerobic workout activities such as step classes, elliptical machines and stationary bicycle or outdoor cycling. increasing the resistance and step height on cardio machines will result in more muscle mass rather than a toned leaner look to your legs. True aerobic training in the form of running, race walking and cardio classes at the gym will build your heart muscle which is something we should all be concerned with at any age.

So How Do Women Build Muscle?

The true answer lies in our DNA. Our genetics have a large determining factor as to how we distribute our body fat and what ratio of estrogen to testosterone is in our body make-up. So, in a way we are already predisposed as to how our body responds to weight training and aerobic exercise in a certain way.

What Body Type Are You?

There are three classifications of body type for women:

Mesomorphs: Tend to be more muscular, this body type responds quickly to weight training and is more apt to gain muscle mass.

Ectomorphs: This last body type tends to be on the lean side with little effort. Even with strength training, they are less likely to build any muscle mass, but will become stronger through lifting weights. Weight loss occurs more easily and they tend to NOT store body fat.

Endomorphs: This body type is more soft and round, often referred to as voluptuous. muscle tone is hard to distinguish with this particular body type there must first be a good amount of fat loss before results are visible.

Research continues to prove that weight training is great for women. It builds body strength and helps to slow bone loss and osteoporisis in some cases. However, most women continue to avoid resistance training out of fear of developing large muscles and losing their femenity.

No two bodies are alike it is important to remember that every woman will respond differently to the exact training routine. everyone is unique, it would be wrong to try and compare yourself to others at the gym. Focus on your individual results based on your age and body type. It’s not what you look like, but rather how exercise makes you feel and the quality of life it brings to you.

The Importance Of Weight Training For Women

November 6th, 2009 AverageWeightForWomen No comments

The benefits of lifting weights, also known as weight training, strength training or resistance training, include stronger muscles, a stronger heart, a leaner physique, and a body better able to support your everyday needs and activities. However despite its many benefits women, still tend to shy away from this beneficial form of exercise because of a misplaced fear that they will “bulk” up and become like an overly muscular body builder.
It seems to be many a man’s dream to have big, bulky muscles. So why is it that men, whose bodies naturally contain much greater amounts of testosterone and growth hormones, can lift weights, yet never achieve those “Terminator” like muscles? Well, unless they are supplementing with dangerous and unhealthful steroids or similar substances, most men do not naturally bulk up by lifting weights, and neither will most women. The idea that women get big, ugly muscles from weight training is a misconception.
The fact of the matter is that women must lift weights in order to achieve the lean, sculpted bodies they desire. If a woman does happen to have the genetic disposition to bulk up quickly, there are easy ways to alter a workout to prevent too much muscle gain, while still increasing strength and rapidly burning fat.
The idea that weightlifting causes insanely huge muscle buildup is largely a creation of the media. It’s true that some female weightlifters take steroids, and these hormones do make them look very masculine, and women who take performance-enhancing drugs should expect to develop deeper voices and more masculine bodies, because these are the known side-effects, after all anabolic steroids contain elevated amounts of testosterone, the male hormone.
The average woman who weight trains, however, will simply achieve a slim, healthy body without adding unwanted muscle mass. In fact, this is how boxers, wrestlers, and other athletes who need a lot of strength without a lot of extra weight (muscle mass) train to stay in shape.
The process of weight training involves controlled lifting and working out with weights. Two basic terms related to weightlifting are “reps” and “sets”. A rep describes the complete act of raising and lowering a weight during a single act of exercise. A set describes the number of times a particular rep is performed. For example, when a person does five reps of a squat, they squat down and stand up five times, continuously, before stopping and either moving on to another exercise or finishing their workout. Those five squats would equal one set. A balanced weight-training session will include several sets of different exercises.
A more advanced weight-training method would be to perform exercises of only 6 or fewer reps, per exercise. This would make the time under tension very short and primarily train your nervous system, which would allow you to gain strength without building much muscle. This technique should be done using the maximal weight you can lift without losing perfect form for no more than 6 repetitions. Doing more than 6 reps allows for greater muscle development, presumably something women generally do not want to achieve.
Another method that has been around for a long time is performing as many repetitions as possible, with the idea of toning your muscles. Well, like a lot of uninformed ideas, this concept is false. You will build stamina and endurance within a muscle through multiple repetitions, but it will not shape or tone your muscles. If your goal is to build stamina without gaining muscle mass, perform anywhere from 15 to 30-plus repetitions of a single exercise.
These two solid principles will help you benefit from weight training without bulking up. Although, as stated in the beginning, chances are that no matter how much weight you lift, you will never have the problem of building too much muscle mass. It is always possible for you to gain fat, and with it a little additional muscle, so you will feel bigger, but remember, that is mostly the result of the fat, and I guarantee that once you lose the fat, you also will lose the feeling of bulkiness.
Ladies, I encourage you: Let go of your preconceived ideas about weight training. Do not fear it. Embrace your weightlifting potential! Your body and overall health will benefit so much more from it than from spending hours on the treadmill.

Having trouble finding a fast weight loss diet plan that works?

October 14th, 2009 AverageWeightForWomen No comments

One of the main problems that people have, when they are trying to lose weight, is finding useful information from all the disinformation. The truth is that most diets and diet plans are not created so you would be successful with weight loss, but they are created so they would be successful. Finding the best diet plan to lose weight fast is so hard, because such thing does not even exist. People are looking for something that does not exist. There are very good reasons why diet plans in general do not work.

Why is finding a fast weight loss diet plan that works so hard?

A diet is very similar to starvation, in fact they are practically the same thing. For example if you were lost in the wilderness without much food, then your body has to find ways to keep you alive. Survival is the most important task for your body. In these extreme cases like starvation, your body´s starvation mechanisms kick in. Meaning your body has to save energy by burning less calories, it also has to feed of itself to get energy. It would not be a very good thing, if your body would keep burning calories at a very high rate, because otherwise you would die very quickly.

The problem is that these same life saving survival mechanism, that keep you alive during starvation, prevent you from successfully losing weight with diets. Because a diet and starvation are the same thing for your body. All types of diets always sends your body to the starvation levels. So the best diet plan to lose weight fast, is not the best way to lose weight.

But do not understand what diets really are and why thy never work. Nobody wants to do their homework, instead they look for magic diets to solve all their problems. I am sure people would be much more successful in losing weight, if they just did a bit of simple homework.