Why weight lifting is important for women?

Many women are afraid of weight lifting; they think they'll end up looking like the Incredible Hulk or, at the very least, too big or bulky. Some female weight loosing enthusiasts say, "I don't life weights because I don't want to bulk up."

It is very difficult for a woman to produce large muscles because women generally have high levels of the hormone estrogen. Estrogen is the hormone that produces female sex parts and our typically smaller amounts of lean tissue. Men typically produce more of the hormone testosterone, which produces the male sex parts and typically larger muscle tissue naturally. The improvements women experience will be made in muscle tone, strength, and endurance - not necessarily in size. As muscles become toned, the body begins to lose fat tissue and becomes firmer. When it comes to strength training, anything that is considered a healthy practice for men is also healthy for women. The fears about bulking up have created a cardio-only mind-set that serves only to burn-calories, but rarely tones or tightens. Resistance exercises such as weight lifting increase your lean muscle mass, which in turn increases the amount of tissue in your body that naturally burns calories in a resting state (ie, while you're sleeping!). If you do only cardio-based workouts, you'll burn calories and increase your cardiovascular output, but you risk the chance of burning muscle, thus slowing down your capability to burn calories and fat over the long run. This means you will risk the chance of slowing down your metabolism - not the effect you want. Cardio is only part of the job.

In addition, as women age, it becomes increasingly important that they focus on resistance exercises. Many changes in muscle tissue that are associated with age are caused by disuse. Just forcing your muscles to work on a regular basis can significantly improve their capacity to do work. You'll see improvements in circulation, coordination, balance, and bone and ligament strength. All of this is especially important for preventing loss of bone density and avoiding osteoporosis. You don't want to look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, do you? Then get lifting! You can actually sabotage your own efforts because of your fears. Lift some weights, do cardio, and find the right nutrition. This combination will give you the strong, lean, healthy results you desire and lose some weight quickly.

Why free weights?

I like to use free weights when I lift for a couple of reasons:

• Cost: Free weights aren't too expensive and are generally available at any sporting goods store. It's pretty easy to purchase a set to keep and use at home.
• Options: There are a multitude of different exercises that you can do with free weights. Also, you have the ability to easily work at different levels of intensity by using lighter or heavier weights.
• Challenge: If you use proper form, free weights allow you a better range of motion than a machine does, which adds a new dimension of difficulty to your workouts and challenges multiple areas of body at once. When you grow stronger, your body adapts to challenges at a quicker pace, and you're forced to challenge your muscles with different modalities and heavier weights to avoid a plateau. With free weights, the result is that more muscles are engaged and you get a more efficient workout. Although it may seem less efficient, you must go slowly, use good form, and use a controlled movement to work the muscles the right way to see your body change.