Train Like A Woman!
June 28th, 2005 by Y.G.I’m a firm believer in “healthy eating and regular exercise do more good than miracle-diet pills”, so I’m always intent on finding good sources of exercise. Hence why I cheered upon seeing this article by Kristin Reisinger, nicely titled Train Like A Woman!. While it doesn’t teach me anything that I didn’t already know, I always feel hyped when I see that other people think this way, and won’t diss out strength training for women on the belief that it’ll make said women a) look like men, b) turn fat into huge muscles and make them look even fatter (fat cannot be converted to muscle, so no worries). There’s a whole world between healthy training and gobbling down steroids!
Do you think these women work out with tiny little dumbbells and their bodies look like that by mistake? Do you even know how hard it is and how much meticulous planning and preparation (and testosterone!) it takes to put on muscle and “bulk up” like a professional bodybuilder? I’ve been lifting as hard and heavy as any guy I know for two years and I keep getting smaller and leaner! I look sexier and more feminine than ever before, too. By really lifting weights and stressing your muscles you will increase your lean mass, and since it is this lean mass (muscle tissue) that burns fat, you will have the capacity to burn more fat even at rest. Combining this with a moderate amount of cardiovascular activity (not three step classes in a row) will turn your body into a fat burning machine. Too much cardio works against you and will eventually begin to utilize your hard-earned lean muscle tissue for energy which is NOT the desired goal.
The rest of the article is equally pumping, and I really agree with her that strength training is a “must-do” when it comes to losing weight and keeping it off on the long term, as well as something that no woman should be ashamed or frightened of. As long as the healthy eating follows and that the workouts are done in a sensible way, there are many benefits in adding this to the regular dose of needed exercise, including feeling better and, indeed, making our metabolisms slightly “faster” (a way of seeing it, after all – muscle needs more energy to be maintained than plain old fat, it thus makes sense). Why should women just renounce this? It takes one weird genetics freak or a good dose of steroids to make us “look like men”, anyway.
Besides, it’s much of a pleasure, too, to see more definition on one’s arms, being able to do fancy things like push-ups, and knowing that there isn’t only fat anymore in this body – there’s also muscle!
