Weight Training Tips for Women: Are you lifting enough??

Описание: Exercise across all age groups is NOT optional.

This includes both cardio (I'm a huge fan of short-burst/high intensity interval training) and strength training.

Despite the perception that exercise is what you do to lose weight, it's not great for weight loss. And if you starting exercising just to lose weight, you're going to be disappointed and stop because you're not exercising for the right reasons.

You need to be exercising because it's the right thing to do. Period. It's that simple.

While there are lots of questions about what resistance training should "look like," two common questions that women ask are...."How much should I be lifting?" and "HOW should I be lifting?"

This study starts to answer these two questions.

This study looked at two different ways women who already exercise could lift weights: high intensity circuit training (HICT) and traditional strength training (TS). The researchers wanted to see if one method was better than the other for building strength, gaining muscle, and losing body fat. Fourteen trained women were split into two groups. One group did HICT, which involves doing different exercises in a fast circuit with short rest. The other group did TS, which is doing one exercise at a time with longer rest between sets. Both groups trained three times a week for eight weeks.

Before and after the 8 weeks, the researchers measured things like muscle strength (how much weight they could lift), body composition (lean muscle and body fat), arm and thigh sizes, and skinfold thickness (a way to estimate fat). The women worked close to “muscular failure,” meaning they lifted weights until they couldn’t do another full repetition.

Both groups of women got stronger by the end of the study. They increased their ability to lift heavier weights on all exercises they tested. Both groups also gained lean muscle mass, and all of the women had lower body fat over time. There was no big difference between the two training methods when looking at strength gains, muscle growth, or fat loss.

The study showed that both high intensity circuit training and traditional strength training work well for trained women who want to increase strength and improve body composition. Because circuit training workouts were much shorter in time, women who want faster sessions might prefer that style. Still, people should choose the kind of training they enjoy and can stick with.

One important comment from Dr. Carpenter, who was involved in the training sessions of all the women, was, "Almost every single participant even though they claimed to be trained, they all were surprised at how much further away from failure they were lifting in the beginning versus how much more I had them push."

Based on this, is it safe to say many of us are not pushing ourselves enough to get the best possible benefits for the time spent?

Find out more in the video.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40323...