Why is Resistance Training so Beneficial for Women?

Why is Resistance Training so Beneficial for Women?

Jun 21, 2022 mindpump

Resistance training has long been touted as this scary, men only endeavor that if women DARE to enter, they’ll just look overly muscular and have strong jawlines. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Resistance training is the EXACT thing you should be doing whether you want to lose weight, or look nice and tone.

No other form of exercise will create the “beach body” most people seek like lifting weights does.

Better Than Cardio

Chasing cardio is a losing game the way most people pursue it. Don’t get me wrong. Cardio is EXCELLENT at increasing your vo2 max, cardiovascular health, and keeping your heart strong. If you are doing it for those reasons, then by all means keep doing it.

The reality of the situation is, most people I end up speaking to or working with, are doing cardio to chase a goal. That goal is usually fat loss. Cardio is a losing game because your body learns to burn less calories the more you do it. Resistance training on the other hand burns MORE calories the more you do it. Wouldn’t we all want the ability to eat MORE food? 

Cardio won’t give you the shape that most women want. Do you want a bigger butt or toned arms? Only lifting weights will achieve that. When women say they want to look toned, what they are really saying is they want enough muscle to look shapely, but have lost enough body fat for that shape to show. When women claim they look too bulky, what is really going on is they’ve built some great muscle, but never got rid of the additional body fat they were carrying. So they’ve added muscle on TOP of whatever body fat they had. If they just went on a 6-12 week diet, focusing on lifting weights to maintain the muscle they earned, and eating less calories to get rid of that excess body fat, their bodies would soon create that nice tone they’re looking for.

Self Confidence

When you get stronger from resistance training, it will give you the confidence to be independent outside of the gym. You may find yourself asking for help less. You can move the furniture on your own, or carry all the groceries in one trip. I’ve had plenty of female clients tell me they’re tired of feeling helpless and wanted to start lifting weights to have the confidence to physically take care of themselves.

Lifestyle

Let’s now look at the long term benefits of incorporating resistance training. It will help combat a sedentary lifestyle and improve your posture. Nothing fixes bad posture better than proper mobility exercises, and using compound exercises to address your weaknesses. If nothing else, you should add weight training to your lifestyle just to address your ailments and weaker areas. If we want to keep up with our kids, or just have a healthy body well into our 70’s and 80’s, then we need to start focusing now on keeping our muscles in shape and not letting our posture cause injury.

Building Up Your Metabolism

I recommend starting off by increasing your calories slowly above maintenance, while following a good 2-3 day a week weightlifting program. Each week try and bump your calories just a little more while progressing in weights or reps. What you are trying to do here is use weight training in conjunction with slowly eating more food to build up your metabolism so you can handle more calories as you continue to get stronger. Muscle is calorically expensive to have, so it requires more calories both to gain and to maintain than weighing exactly the same without the same amount of muscle.

If you want help finding out how to build a starting program, check out my article Weight Training for Beginners and the Best Resistance Training Workout Routine for Beginners.