Girls often avoid strength training because they are afraid that exercising with weights will make them "muscle". Such thinking, however, is a harmful myth that discourages many women from taking up physical activity. Women's strength training has many advantages - it slims, shapes, firms the skin, gives the figure a sexy shape and increases self-confidence. Read an excerpt from the book Strong and Sexy, which author David Costa deals with the most common myths about strength training for women. Wformie24.pl took the patronage of this publication.

Strength trainingnot suitablefor girls ? It's a myth! David Costa, fitness instructor and author ofStrong and sexyshows that women can and should exercise with weights too. Forget about effortless exercise or lazy aerobics - doing them will lose some body fat, but your body will remain flaccid and weak. Strength training will allow you to lose weight and, in addition, gain a strong, elastic, shapely body without extensive muscles.

Common myths about strength training for women

When deciding on a specific type of training, women are often guided by stereotypes. One of them says that strength training is intended for men because it is mainly used to build muscle tissue. It's time to deal with this often-repeated myth as well as other stereotypes about strength training.

MYTH 1. Lifting heavy weights will make you too muscular and have massive shoulders.

There is no such option! Your body is hormonally different from that of a man; due to too little testosterone production, it will not react as effectively to training with weights as it happens in men.

MYTH 2. You have to do crunches or isometric exercises for hours to have a flat stomach with a visible outline of the muscles.

This situation is well summed up by the saying popular on the other side of the Atlantic:abs are made in the kitchen , i.e. the abdominal muscles are made in the kitchen. In other words, to lose weight, do not focus on bizarre exercise but on nutrition, because it all depends on your body fat mass. Also remember that when you train with weights, you engage your abdominal muscles to solid work. This is an additional reason to go to the gym.

MYTH 3. Strength training is reserved forguys, professional athletes and young people.

On the contrary, it is very popular in physical and muscle rehabilitation programs in the elderly because it slows down the loss of strength and muscle mass that progresses over the years. It is an activity appropriate for every human being, because it allows you to choose the load, and therefore also the intensity of the effort, to individual needs.

MYTH 4. If you do strength training, you must take protein supplements.

No. A balanced and properly composed diet is enough for strength training to bring results. Thanks to supplements, you will not see much progress, although it may be worthwhile in some respects to enrich your diet.

Important

MYTH 5. The key thing is to reduce your body weight.

The number on the scale shows your body weight, which includes water, muscle, fat and also your skeleton. Aside from the fact that the water content fluctuates throughout the day, it is important that you try to reduce the amount of fat mass without losing lean mass or even increasing it.Muscle tissue allows the body to burn more calories and adds beauty by emphasizing the shape and roundness . When you train with weights, you gain some muscle mass, so it is not uncommon for your overall body weight to remain unchanged or only show a very slow decline. However, waist, hip and thigh circumferences are decreasing very quickly!

MYTH 6. By using dumbbells and dumbbells, you will damage your back or get an injury.

On the contrary, training with free weights turns out to be even more useful because it strengthens muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints. However, it is necessary to know the correct technique of performing exercises and to use properly selected loads.

MYTH 7. After training with weights, you will look like a man.

Absolutely not. Well-thought-out training combined with an appropriate diet will help you remodel your figure so that you will become even more feminine. All fitness models watched on the Internet, whose bodies you consider unattainable ideal, exercise with weights.

MYTH 8. You can lose weight within the selected body part.

Although fat deposits are more visible in certain parts of the body (this is due to genetics which make the concentration of adipocytes, i.e. fat cells that store fat reserves, vary from person to person and from gender to person). fat is global. As a result, if you want to "lose" some buttocks or arms, you need to reduce all your fat mass. There is no one magical, selective exercise!

MYTH9. Training with weights is a sport for fools!

You are wrong, practicing this sport requires motor intelligence and a good understanding of the body structure. You should consciously control the body posture and correctly visualize the position of certain body segments in relation to others. You will also have to demonstrate a considerable ability to concentrate in order to make perfect movements despite heavy loads and fatigue increasing with each repetition. Moreover, in order to maintain the correct position, strength training requires good joint mobility and flexibility.

This will be useful to you

Why should girls train strength?

Training with the use of typically "male" equipment, such as dumbbells or an exercise bench, can give you a number of benefits:

  • reduce the amount of visceral fat and subcutaneous fat around the abdomen;
  • slightly increase the rate of basal metabolism (resting metabolism);
  • increase muscle mass and reduce fat mass;
  • strengthen bones by thickening the bone tissue;
  • raise self-esteem and self-confidence;
  • increase strength;
  • improve posture and correct figure disproportions;
  • sculpt the body as you see fit.

It all adds up to a slim, firm figure full of power and energy.

MYTH 10. To lose weight or slim down, you need to do cardio exercises.

Not only! Research conducted by the American College of Sports Medicine showed that after several weeks of strength training in people who had not practiced sports before, the level of fat mass decreased, while muscle mass increased. The conclusion is that when practicing strength training, you can make progress on two levels, while by performing low-intensity cardio exercises, only on one.

MYTH 11. Strength training will make you sluggish and your running performance will worsen.

Ask for the opinion of a footballer, basketball player or handball player who must move with high speed and agility. Training with weights is very popular in the physical preparation of professional athletes, because it significantly improves performance in terms of strength, speed, power, explosiveness and endurance. Strength training will allow you to show more tonus, strength and freedom during various activities, because you will be able to control the weight of your body more easily. Running will also become more effective, because strength and tone will help you with each foot kick off the ground. The run will seem much easier and you will improve your results.

MYTH 12. Strength training only serves to keep youpack.

Has many advantages, incl. lowers the risk of coronary heart disease, non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus and colon cancer, prevents osteoporosis, promotes weight reduction and maintenance, improves dynamic balance, preserves functional efficiency and has a positive effect on well-being.

MYTH 13. Strength training and cardio are mutually exclusive.

Both of these activities complement each other, because the regeneration after the effort put into training at the gym will be of an aerobic (cardio) nature. Moreover, you can combine cardio with strength exercises thanks to a specific training organization (circuit training, High Intensity Interval Training, tabata). This type of combination will bring excellent results in terms of reducing fat mass, which you will be able to see at the next stages of the program.

You can read more about strength training for women in David Costa's bookSilnai sexyAha! Publishing house. There you will find a comprehensive training plan for 12 weeks, technical tips and nutritional advice.

Category:

Bodybuilding