Strength training for women

I used to sweat over every piece of cardio equipment in the gym. Beside the fact that this is all but an inspiring sport activity, it didn't give me the results I was aiming for either. When I started training at Sixforty I got introduced to strength training workouts. And suddenly the scale gave me much more love than before. And no, I didn't become a female version of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Let me clarify this first: women naturally can never get as muscular as men! This has to do with the fact that women have a smaller amount of muscle fibers and testosterone. So no reason for you to hide behind this ancient myth.

Strenght training for women

I`ll give you some undeniable reasons that will convince you to start lifting weights:

• 2 strength sessions a week can reduce overall body fat by about 3 percentage in just 10 weeks. That translates to as much as three inches total off your waist and hips. Suddenly, dumbbells sound like a smart idea.

• Your after burn increases with 100 calories per training when you lift weights. If you train three times a week, 52 weeks a year… well, do the math! There's a longer term benefit to all that lifting too: muscles are, unlike fat, metabolically active. That means that muscles chew up calories, even when you are not in the gym.

•  Add heavy weights to your training. In a study in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, women burned nearly twice as many calories in the two hours after their workout when they lifted 85 percent of their max load for eight reps than when they did more reps (15) at a lower weight (45 percent of their max).

It's recommended to do three weight training sessions each week. Aim for total body workouts that target your arms, abs, legs and back. For each exercise you do, try to perform three sets of 10 to 15 reps with a weight heavy enough that by your last rep you can't eke out another one without compromising your form.

And remember to fuel your body properly before working out. Treat your body like a car: food = fuel. If you put the wrong gas in your car, it won't work. The right food prevents you from losing muscle along with any fat that might have melted away. So make sure you eat high protein food like chicken, soy products, eggs and quark.

(Source: http://www.womenshealthmag.com)