subject: Why Women Should Lift Weights [print this page] Most women will tell you that they want to lose weight, firm up their thighs, and tone their arms. But if you ask those same ladies what exercises they perform to get to those goals, you'll hear the same thing over and over again: cardio exercise, abdominal exercise, and some stretching.For years, telling women that they needed to lift weights and do resistance exercise would cause most of them to run away in fear. "I don't want to look bulky" is most of their complaints. It's true, most ladies believe that doing resistance exercises, they're going to put on bulky muscles and look less feminine.The truth is, though, that if women want to achieve results like tone arms and thighs, they do indeed need to incorporate resistance exercise. The worry of becoming bulky isn't true, if you exercise right.Women don't have to exercise the same way as men. Most guys want to put on muscle mass and increase their size, so their plan is to lift more weight and tire out quickly. Women, on the other hand need to have a different mindset in order to achieve the results they want.For women who want a long, lean, toned look it's best for them to perform high repetition, low weight sets. By performing a high number of repetitions, for example 15-21 reps, and keeping the weight low, their muscles fatigue but in a different way than someone who is looking to put on muscle size.For women who are concerned about lifting weights, there is good news. There are a whole sort of different resistance exercise styles. You can take a Pilates class, which is lesser impact, but still focuses a lot on challenging your muscles. You can use Physioballs, medicine balls, or even your own body weight.It's best for women to perform exercises that require multiple muscle groups to activate. Take for example, a squat which activates hamstrings, quadriceps, glutes, and calves, is more demanding than a seated leg extension which only uses one leg muscle. Since a push-up uses more muscles in order to execute, it burns more energy which, thus, gets you better results.Other than getting amazing physical results, there are great health benefits that go along with women who lift weight. With osteoporosis being a major health issue for women, especially as their age increases, increasing skeletal muscle through lifting weights, has been shown to help slow the down the frailty of bones.
