- Part 2 in the trifecta of the fountain of youth.
- Strength Training
- Let’s dive right into the good stuff!
Benefits of strength and resistance training:
- 1. Aids in fat loss – your body composition will shift to more muscle and less fat with strength training and in all of my decades training clients, this is at the heart of what most every woman wants.
- 2. Increases strength – Strength equals independence. So if you want to be independent, you must be strong.
- Help prevent injury – when your connective tissues (tendons and ligaments) are strong, your risk of injury decreases.
- 3. Confidence – Gaining muscle not only helps your posture and balance, but it can literally change the way you hold yourself thus effecting how you see yourself, and the way others see you.
- 4. Stress reducer – Those who increase muscle mass through lifting or adding resistance helps improve mood and decreases stress and anxiety.
- 5. More youthful skin – toned muscled give the skin a tightened look and helps offset age-related skin sagging.
- 6. Improves mobility – I preach mobility a lot…the ability to move your body through space with ease. Having a strong core and strong muscles overall can help you perform daily functional tasks more easily.
- 7. Balanced hormones – Strength training stimulates the release of human growth hormone, which aids in burning fat and building muscle. It can also help regulate the sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen), especially as we age.
8. Improves bone density – this is crucial for fighting osteoporosis, so if this runs in your family, you should be heading for the weights right away. If it doesn’t, you still may be at risk so prevention is key!- Muscle
- Gaining muscle mass can be done a few ways, let’s focus on 2:
- Resistance training and strength training.
What are they and which is best for women?
They are often used interchangeably. At it’s core, resistance training is generally using bands, body weight, or weights.
Strength training focuses on building strength of the muscle through higher weights and lower reps.
Which is best is dependent on how new you are to exercise, equipment access, and what you’re looking to achieve.
A healthy combination of both is a fabulous mix as you can strength train 2-3 days a week and with adequate rest, then resistance train 2-3 days.
My 10 minute HIIT workouts are a combination of both strength and resistance, as we are often fatiguing the muscle so that the final round is very difficult, and we are utilizing a combination of body weight and weights. However, you aren’t lifting super heavy so supplementing with separate heavy lifting sessions is beneficial.
Although higher reps with lower weight is certainly fine to do, if your goal is to improve your overall body fat composition or your fat to muscle ratio, you want to make sure you lift heavy at least a couple days a week.
Heavy is relative, so think 8-10 reps per set before you feel you just can’t do one more…then you know your muscles are under the right amount of tension for both strength and fat loss goals.
Building muscle mass burns more calories when you’re just sitting around. So don’t be afraid. I want you to hear this next sentence because this myth is one of the hardest to bust…
You are NOT going to “bulk up” and “look like a man.”
You may build muscle easily, but the only way you will look more bulky is if you continue down the path of a poor diet and are adding muscle underneath fat. Assuming your goal is to decrease body fat and have lots of energy, you’ll want to make sure you are eating a diet rich in whole foods with very minimal processed foods.
The fear of bulking has held more women back from achieving their fat loss goals than any other single factor. I’ve been asked a lot by new followers on Instagram who haven’t seen my fitness videos yet if all I do to workout is dance. If I did, I would have a far different body composition since I wouldn’t have near as much muscle mass.
Dance can be great for endurance, flexibility, cardio, balance, joy, etc…but it will not change your body composition the same way resistance or strength training will.
If you’ve neglected strength training consistently and have been dancing for years, running for years, cycling for years, walking for years, and you’ve been frustrated with your results, add it in for just 2 days a week can dramatically transform you body!
It may take some time, so be patient! And if you are new to weight lifting or training, I highly recommend hiring a certified personal trainer to show you what to do and how to get the most out of it…and to do it safely!
Let’s talk “weight loss” for a moment. You may be reading and thinking, but I really just want to lose weight, I don’t care about adding muscle. I could talk for pages on both topics but let me do my best to hit each as succinctly as possible.
Your body is made of mass and that mass is equivalent to weight that comes from muscle, bones, organs, fat, water, and more. Let’s be clear, losing “weight” can mean a loss of muscle and that is NOT what you want.
Yet over the age of 35, women lose muscle mass at an accelerated rate per year, so it’s crucial to replace lost mass through resistance and strength training.
I’ve always encouraged my clients to focus far more on WAIST loss than WEIGHT loss. Since the incidence of cardiovascular disease more than doubles with a waist circumference of just 35”, it makes sense to keep up with circumference as a sign of overall health.
I’m not a scale never person…unless it messes with your head. Here’s the test:
If you woke up tomorrow and looked in the mirror and had the body you always dreamed of, ran into the bathroom and jumped on the scale and it hadn’t budged since the night before, what would that do to you mentally. Being honest with how you feel about that will help dictate if the scale can safely be part of a “check in” on occasion.
Summing it up: Because muscle is important for balance, metabolism, and posture, along with stabilizing and strengthen joints, they can also help fat reduction. Be sure to hire a certified personal trainer to set you up on a program that will provide endurance, strength, and fat loss benefits progressively and safely.
I’d love to hear from you below. What benefits have you gained from strength training
