weight training and women

Recently I have been seeing alot of female clients that have worries about gaining muscle mass when lifting weights. This worry is not as justifiable as most people think. For a woman to gain a significant amount of muscle is a hard thing to do for several reasons.

Most women do not take in enough calories or protein to sustain large muscles. To gain functional muscle (what everyone needs) will not ever make a woman look bulky. This should be the goal of a female lifting weights. This is achieved not through lifting heavy weights, but lighter weights and doing more repetitions

Of the three body types, mesomorphs gain muscle easier than others. That is, if you already have a good musculature before lifting, chances are you are going to gain more when lifting. The trick to lifting and not gaining at this point is to do high repetition endurance weight training workouts.

Since women predominately have a lean body type as far as muscle is concerned, and they want to keep it that way, they should take part in full body, or half body workouts. This way they are not concentrating on a muscle group causing too much growth, and they can keep their caloric expenditure high.

The goal of weight training for women is not to gain alot of muscle. It is to promote a high metabolic rate so they can burn more calories throughout the day. By doing this they will achieve weight loss while maintaining tone. So, ladies, while lifting avoid doing just legs, or just arms, or just abs, and instead concentrate on doing light weight full body workouts to get the results you want.

Finally, to gain significant amounts of muscle requires lifting weights five or six days a week. For my female clients and any woman for that matter, i recommend no more than three days a week for lifting. So, alternate weight training days with days just for cardio. You will be surprised with the results.

if you have more specific questions, please contact Jared.