Weight lifting is the single most effective form of exercise you can do for your overall health PERIOD (do I need to put an actual period after that?).  It is the best thing to slow, and even reverse, the hands of time.  This is as true for women as it is for men.  Pictures of female bodybuilders who look like big, buff men with bad hair and funny tops have given weight training a bad rap for a lot of women.  People see these pictures and think that’s what weightlifting does to women. That is simply NOT true.

                             Lifting weights will not give women big, bulky muscles.

Women simply do not have anywhere near the amount of testosterone needed to promote the growth of large muscles. The women in those pictures with huge arms and two grapefruits duct taped onto massive pecs are as big as they are because they have more likely than not, taken massive amounts of steroids.  It is true than a select few women (VERY few) have been blessed/cursed, depending on your point of view, with rare genetics that favor large muscles.  These women would still have to train and eat specifically to promote muscle growth.  If you are a women and posses these genes, chances are you already know it, you can train to avoid growing large muscles in areas you do not want to be large.

Strength training will give you strong muscles: strong, NOT BIG, but tight, sleek, sexy muscles that are packed with fat burning muscle fibers.  It will give you a slim, sexy and toned body – and it will still be a WOMAN’S body.

Working out with weights is not only good for your shape; it’s GREAT for your health. You will live longer and live better.  It’s as close to the fountain of youth as we can get.  As we age we lose lean body mass – our muscles shrink. With the loss in lean muscle mass our metabolism slows.  That’s why as we age we get FAT eating the same amount of calories that we used to eat without gaining weight.

If you don’t do anything to retain your lean muscle mass, your body fat percentage will climb and with it your risk for heart disease, diabetes and other chronic conditions. Strength training can help you preserve and enhance your muscle mass and health — at any age.

It’s been shown to reduce belly fat, control weight, boost stamina, manage or eliminate chronic conditions (such as back pain, arthritis, obesity and heart disease), prevent diabetes.  It can reduce and control blood pressure better than statin drugs, strengthen bones (helps protect against osteoporosis), maintain mental function, relieve stress AND burn calories even when you’re not exercising.  All this while adding functional years to your life and making you feel and LOOK YOUNGER.

                                       Add years to your life and look younger. 

Not only will strength training give you the body you want faster and more effectively than ANY other form of exercise, it will make it easier to retain it.  And for every pound of dense muscle you add, you will burn extra calories per day even when you are sleeping.

Dieting will make you slimmer but will rob your body of calorie burning muscle and will have done nothing to reshape your body into anything other than a smaller version of the larger you (and inevitably not as small in some parts as you would like and too small in others).

And while, as a newbie to weight training, you may burn more calories during your 1-hour cardio class than you would lifting weights for an hour, a study published in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that women who did weight training burned an average of 100 more calories during the 24 hours after their training session ended.  And the calories burned during your workout will surpass those burned during a cardio workout when you become a more experienced lifter. 

Strength training will transform your body. It will give you the shapely body YOU want, where you want – something dieting and cardio can NOT do.  Jogging, spinning, Zumba, etc. will burn calories and may get you in good cardiovascular shape but aerobic exercise has been proven not as effective for losing fat, and will do nothing to give you back the butt you had at 20.  Strength training will.

                Nothing will get your body back into the shape YOU want better or faster. 

Strength training also saves time. A good strength training program will leave you plenty of time to live YOUR life. With as little as 20 minutes twice a week, or for maximum results, try for 3 days a week but for no more than an hour a time – a fraction of the time you would spend doing cardio – you can get into the best shape of your life.  Don’t follow some fad fitness workout with high reps and light dumbbells designed to get you “shaped and toned”, you’ll just be wasting time.  If you can do more than 12 reps on an exercise you need to raise the weight (closer to 8 once you become more advanced).  While high rep work might be beneficial for certain people at certain times, for the vast majority of trainees anything over 8 - 12 reps will do nothing for you and closer to 5 just might be best.

For exercise selection, compound movements targeting the larger muscle groups (like glutes, hamstrings and quads) are the most effective – not only for post workout calorie burn but for strengthening, toning and shaping your entire body and for overall fitness.  I have found squatting and/or dead lifting along with pressing gets the most bang for the buck for my female trainees.  And the calorie burning effect (as well as strength) is magnified when you increase the weight, as explained in a study in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, women who lifted more weight for fewer reps (85 percent of their 1 rep max load for 8 reps) burned nearly twice as many calories during the two hours after their workout than when they did more reps with a lighter weight (45 percent of their max load for 15 reps).

Let’s talk reps and sets. Repetitions, or how many times you repeat a movement, are called reps. Sets are the groups of reps you perform.  Lifting a weight over your head 5 times would be 5 reps. Do that “set” of 5 reps 3 times and you will have done 3 sets of 5 reps. For a beginner a good rep range to teach proper form would be anywhere around 6 – 12.  This range is great to train your body to perform the movement properly and to build some strength.  Once proper form and some strength have been developed you can begin to focus the reps/sets on your specific goals.  High volume training, single sets, super sets etc can all be very useful depending on the individual and his/her goals and training experience but generally for most trainees, once form is mastered,  3- 5 sets for 5 – 8 reps on a handful of exercises is all you will need.

Weight: how heavy should the weight be?  The right weight is one you can lift – in good form – for the prescribed rep protocol BUT no more: lifting a weight for 5 reps that you could easily lift for 8 or 10 is ineffective, so choose your weights wisely.  

How many reps?  How many sets?  Good questions.  There are many variables that affect this and are dependent on the individual: personality, age, goals, body types etc are just a few things that need to be considered. While it is possible, depending on the individual, to gain both strength and size with a variety of rep/set protocols, current exercise science suggest the following to generally be the most efficient rep/set schemes:

To increase strength without increasing muscle size (hypertrophy), perform low reps with heavy (for you) weights.

                                     That’s right: Lift heavy weights to NOT get big. 

Rep ranges as low as 2 - 4 can be incredibly effective for an advanced trainee.

To increase muscle size, use a lighter weight for higher reps – usually in the 8 to 12 range – and higher volume (more sets) and combine that with an increase in caloric intake.

One of those protocols may be perfect for your desires, or you may want/need to use a mixture of the two, e.g. – since, as previously stated, the vast majority of female lifters adding a lot of muscle mass is just not going to happen, any rep range between 5 and 10 will be effective for helping strengthen, shape and tone your physique without adding unwanted bulk but, if you have been gifted genetically with large arms and a small flat rear and you would like to return that gift, using lower reps/sets with a heavy weight on exercises that effect the muscles of the arms will ensure they get strong and toned without reaching their genetic size potential, while a higher rep range with more sets may work better for bringing your butt to its largest, roundest, most heart shaped potential.

So women, don’t be afraid to hit the gym and pump some serious iron. The benefits are immeasurable (and measurable!). You won’t get big and bulky muscles but you can still make the muscles you want to stand out, stand out.  Your muscles will grow stronger and your body will get that toned look you are after.

If you new to weight training and/or need some guidance or are just intimidated looking at all the weights and fancy machines at the gym, find a good trainer to show you which exercises are effective and to teach you proper form. Then you’ll be on your way to a healthier, stronger, better looking body. If your trainer shows you triceps kickbacks, or has you on standing on a balance ball doing bicep curls or takes you near the Smith machine, find another.