Benefits of Weight Training for Women

Weight training is a often debated and scary topic for a lot of women. Fitness professionals are regularly recommending that women participate in a regular weight lifting routine, but there is the age old myth that weight lifting will cause women to bulk up.

Now we won't go into that topic as we covered it in our last blog post and you can read that post at the link below:

https://www.sccfitnessllc.com/single-post/heavy-weight-lifting-women-will-you-bulk-up

Today we will talk about all the other health benefits of weight training for women.

1) Get Stronger - This is an obvious one right? It is well documented that weight training increases strength levels when done on a regular basis, this is true whether you are male or female. A big plus of increasing strength levels is that it makes everyday chores (ex: picking up kids, taking out the garbage, cleaning, etc.) a lot easier.

2) Fat Burning - Cardio has long been looked at as the way to burn fat, but there is more and more evidence that weight lifting may be even better in this regard. One study found that adults who walked for exercise lost as much weight as those that walked and did weight training. The difference was those that only walked lost lean mass, while those that included lifting lost fat and maintained muscle.

3) Burn More Calories - Just like mentioned above, cardio has long been viewed as the better option to burn calories; but strength training is very good at this as well. In fact, you may actually burn more calories from heavy lifting in the long run. Yes, an hour of cardio burns more calories than an hour of lifting; but the secret is an increase in resting metabolic rate. Lifting does a better job at increasing your rest metabolic rate, which is the rate at which your body burns calories when you're doing nothing, for hours after the workout. One study found that young women who lifted weights for 100 minutes saw a 4.2% increase in their resting metabolism for 16 hours after the fact.

4) Lifting Strengthens More Than Just Muscles - An added benefit to weight training is that is strengthens your bones too. Women are especially susceptible to losing bone density and strength as they age. Just like muscles, bones respond to forces applied to them by breaking down and building new cells. When you lift weights, the muscles used contract and pull on the bones they are attached to. This force stimulates the bones to make new cells, thus preventing and even reversing bone loss.