Female Weight Training Myths 101
One of the biggest myths in the fitness industry is that portrayed time and again in magazines and newsfeeds is that the best way to get into a lean muscular shape, get tighter abs, get fitter, look good in a pair of jeans or bikinis is that it only takes a few minutes a day and that you need to do cardio and no resistance training.
Lifting weights will make you bulky
Lifting weights will help increase lean muscle mass in females but it will not cause a dramatic increase in bulk. In fact by lifting weights your metabolism will increase post training so that you will be burning body fat while you are resting. Therefore making you less bulky then when you first started lifting weights.
The same plan works for each woman
The same training and eating regime does not work for everyone. Each plan needs to be individually tailored to meet your own specific requirements. Cookie cutter programs and one-size fits all mentality will ensure that you will not get the results you are after or that you deserve.
Older women should avoid strength training
The opposite is true for postmenopausal women. The more strength training the better functional mobility day to day strength and improvements in quality of life and movement ability will occur.
Women should not squat
One of the keys to great glute and quad development is to squat. The heavier the squat the better and who would not like a set of nicely shaped legs and glutes. The only way to get them is to squat and to lift heavy with deadlifts and other lower body exercises.
You need to do cardio to lose body fat
Cardio is not the way in which to effectively lose body fat without also losing lean muscle mass. To lose body fat and to either increase or maintain muscle tissue is to perform resistance based exercises.
Men and women should train differently
This is one of the most sexist comments ever made. There is no physiological reason for any difference to occur in the training programs between males and females.
Eating less will cause you to lose body fat.
Eating less will slow your metabolism and cause you to increase body fat levels rather then decrease it. This topic will be covered in another blog later this month.
So the key take away message is that to get results women must lift weights, they must eat more and they must train hard.
