Why Women Should Weight Train

[mtomm[$]]

Okay, so that I can get up on my soapbox here without preaching I'd like to open this thread about my pet project at the moment: weight training for women.

I'm not sure why as women we feel the need to run, jog, and aerobisize ourselves thin but we do. It somehow has become THE thing for weight loss and health.

I am not discounting those above as being healthy for your cardiovascular system. They are. However, they are not the best suited for weight loss and maintaining healthy weight.

One point each day until I've made all of the points in this article. (Not in original order)

1. Your New Muscle Will Help Fight Obesity. As you add muscle from strength training, your resting metabolism will increase, so you'll burn more calories all day long, notes Westcott. For each pound of muscle you gain, you'll burn 35 to 50 more calories daily. So, for example, if you gain three pounds of muscle and burn 40 extra calories for each pound, you'll burn 120 more calories per day, or approximately 3,600 more calories per month. That equates to a loss of 10 to 12 pounds in one year!
(I'll add: during exercise cardio activities burn more calories. But it is the after-effects after weight lifting that really eats up the calories. It takes a ton of calories to rebuild your muscle and it is time consuming.)

[theworm[$]]

Margo - thank you for this thread!

[murasaki]

Strength training (or at least using resistance bands) is an essential part of fitness--just like diet and cardio work outs, and probably the most neglected area: stretching.

At the moment, I'm only lifting weights to tone and I'm not doing anything involving the arms (my elbow is giving me fits but the ionic circuit thingey seems to be working), but this was a good reminder that I need to get back into building my shoulder and chest muscles--I've mostly been maintaining for the last two years.

[mtomm[$]]

2. You'll Lose More Fat Than You'll Gain in Muscle. Westcott and his colleagues have done numerous weight training studies involving thousands of women and have never had anyone complain about bulking up. In fact, Westcott's research shows that the average woman who strength trains two to three times a week for eight weeks gains 1.75 pounds of lean weight or muscle and loses 3.5 pounds of fat. Unlike men, women typically don't gain size from strength training, because compared to men, women have 10 to 30 times less of the hormones that cause bulking up, explains Kraemer.

[mtomm[$]]

Are you reading these???


3. You'll Be a Stronger Woman. Westcott's studies indicate that moderate weight training increases a woman's strength by 30 to 50 percent. Extra strength will make it easier to accomplish some daily activities, such as lifting children or groceries. Kraemer notes that most strength differences between men and women can be explained by differences in body size and fat mass; pound for pound, women can develop their strength at the same rate as men.

[jenninca]

I am reading them! And I was inspired to do the arms and abs part of my Richard Simmons video. Granted, it was 12 minutes total using water bottles as weights, but it was something.

Cindy

[mtomm[$]]

jenninca said

I am reading them! And I was inspired to do the arms and abs part of my Richard Simmons video. Granted, it was 12 minutes total using water bottles as weights, but it was something.

Cindy

It counts. If you start out with too much it is waaaay to painful. A little DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) is okay but when it is life limiting you've gone over the top!

Good for you, Cindy!

[AuntieEmma[$]]

jenninca said

I am reading them! And I was inspired to do the arms and abs part of my Richard Simmons video. Granted, it was 12 minutes total using water bottles as weights, but it was something.

Cindy

I have that tape! The one with the 50's theme, right? Fun tape.

I was inspired by this thread to do my Tamilee Webb arms/abs quick toning tape, which is also a fun routine, and blissfully short. Probably about 12 minutes also, not counting the little warm-up.

[mtomm[$]]

[jenninca]

Yep, Sweatin' to the Oldies. I have all three.

Yesterday I bought a DVD that is 10 minute hip hop dance workouts. I've wanted to learn hip hop for a long time, so this is a good, quick way to do it.

Cindy

[theworm[$]]

That sweatin to the oldies always looked like fun. Corny as all hell, but fun.
But if Richard is wearing those satin running shorts I don't know how long I could use the tape.

[mtomm[$]]

I have nothing against Richard and his shorts but back to training with weights as Richard didn't get those muscles by accident, somehow he has managed to lift some weights.

4. Your Bones Will Benefit. By the time you leave high school, you have established all the bone mineral density you'll ever have--unless you strength train, says Westcott. Research has found that weight training can increase spinal bone mineral density by 13 percent in six months. So strength training is a powerful tool against osteoporosis.

[theworm[$]]

Oops - sorry Margo. I WILL be weight training as soon as the doc gives me the ok - which should be in a week or two.

[mtomm[$]]

Ya'll thought I forgot because I've been waiting for the bag o' crap! Well, that is almost true. Here is your motivation for today. A good one.

5. You Will Reduce Your Risk of Diabetes. Adult-onset diabetes is a growing problem for women and men. Research indicates that weight training can increase glucose utilization in the body by 23 percent in four months.

[lynnzop[$]]

Margo, these are excellent points, and I personally can benefit from each one of them.

You are inspiring me. I have water weights and some small dumbbells at home. I should be able to use those 2-3 times a week and be better off, right?

[frazzledspice]

I love Richard Simmons' tapes, too....

I love the music.

What kind of music would you listen to for lifting weights?

Adagio for Strings?

I admit that I am a very fussy exerciser. I need music, lively, singable music, like Motown.

Psychologists say that when you're older (as I am) that if you listen to the music of your youth, you actually start acting younger, and your muscle mass grows. This happened in studies at a nursing home, where the environment of the 1940's was simulated as much as possible, especially with music. All of a sudden the residents started acting younger and had improvements in memory and muscle mass...

My favorite exercise is water aerobics, but sometimes we do things with resistance bands (I think you call them exertubes) and water dumbbells....And water is more resistant than air.

Is there a way to make working with weights fun, and can you do it to Motown and sing at the same time?

Oh, well, at least I am increasing my muscle mass to the level it was in my twenties by sweatin to the oldies.

[mtomm[$]]

I personally find music at Itunes and MSN plus my own CDs. Unlike Frazz I don't usually pick music from my youth (the 80s) but I like Hip Hop and things that I don't listen to IRL.

I'm glad you are liking them!

Lynn, sounds like you've got the right things to get you started. You'll be suprised though how fast your muscles will adapt and you'll be ready for heavier stuff to keep progressing.

[mtomm[$]]

More on diabetes from WannaBeBig.com . The question might not be applicable to all of us but the answer is probably relevant to many of us.

Losing weight & being insulin resistant

Q: I’m overweight, and I just started weight-training. My doctor tells me I’m insulin resistant. I’m not entirely sure what IR means, but I sure know I feel horrible when I tried knocking back a quarter cup of dextrose in a post-workout shake. Have any suggestions?

Annonymous

A: You bet. And I’ll actually answer your second question as part of the one at the end of this issue.

First, let’s back up and talk briefly about insulin. Insulin is a storage hormone – it basically rings a kind of doorbell on your muscle cells and says “sugar delivery, let us in” - except that with insulin resistance, the doorbell doesn’t work very well. (4)

Your body starts cranking out more and more insulin, and your doorbells work worse and worse in response. You feel weak, hungry, like you’ve got “low blood sugar”, only you don’t – you have plenty of glucose - it just can’t get in to where it’s needed – your muscle cells. Not enough of it, anyway.

Now - high levels of blood sugar are toxic (5) – so if your muscles can’t take it up, your liver and your fat cells do, to protect you. So you get fatter and fatter, but you keep feeling hungry. Great, eh?

To make matters worse, the fatter you get, the more insulin resistant you tend to become: IR is positively associated with fat gain.

Left unchecked, IR can turn into type II diabetes, where you have chronically elevated levels of insulin and toxic levels of glucose. This opens the door for a host of other problems: chronically elevated levels of the pro-inflammatory hormone insulin are associated with diseases ranging from high blood pressure to heart disease (6) and possibly even breast cancer. (7) Chronically elevated levels of glucose cause damage to various tissues in the body such as nerves, kidneys (8), and eyes (retinas are damaged by high blood sugar and high blood pressure) (9) .

Not good.

The good news is that by losing weight, you’ll lower your IR: losing fat mass increases insulin sensitivity. (10) Even removing fat through liposuction improves insulin sensitivity. (11)

Interestingly, although good for your heart, cardiovascular activity may not do much to improve insulin resistance: (12)

“Compared with lean fit women, estimated insulin sensitivity was only slightly lower and plasma triacylglycerols were almost identical in overweight women with equally high CRF (cardiorespiratory fitness) despite a twofold elevation in body fat percentage.”

Resistance exercise however, even without changes in body composition, may increase muscle insulin sensitivity (13) - in other words, you can make the doorbells start ringing again by dropping weight and/or by lifting weights. Who knew how helpful the selective use of gravity could be!

So if you’re IR and hate cardio, the good news is cardio might not do much to help your IR anyway. Do a little for your heart, but it’s resistance training and fat loss that are more likely to improve your insulin sensitivity.

(It is important to note that there is a special case where insulin resistance appears to be beneficial: the IR that develops on a low-carb diet. By limiting the muscle's use of glucose (in favour of using fatty acids), what glucose is available is spared for the brain. This is very different from the type of IR described above. (14) It is also temporary, reversed with the gradual re-introduction of carbs into the diet – even the Atkins diet does this with the “carb ladder”.)

Now, in getting back to your question, you might find that you’re comfortable having higher carbohydrate consumption on lifting days, particularly in the meals just before and possibly just after you lift. This is actually a dietary approach that many bodybuilders take and it’s called carb-cycling (15) or macronutrient timing. (16) While the efficacy of these approaches over conventional dieting strategies may be contentious, many people with carbohydrate metabolism problems find this approach a very comfortable way to diet (I’m one of them), and it’s certainly something for you to consider.

The leaner you get, the better able your body will likely become at using the ergogenic properties of this tasty macronutrient, so take heart in knowing that you’ll likely enjoy more and more dietary flexibility as you continue to lift and lean out.

The bolding is mine.

[mtomm[$]]

6. You Will Fight Heart Disease. Strength training will improve your cholesterol profile and blood pressure, according to recent research. Of course, your exercise program should also include cardiovascular exercise and flexibility training.

[frazzledspice]

Isn't it true that any exercises that work with core strength will increase strength?

Pilates?

T-Tapp (I've just gotten the book and done some of the exercises, but I've heard raves about it.)

Better Body Basics - T-Tapp.com

If I am going to spend time doing something, I have to enjoy it....even if it's good for me.

[cristina1]

You were my inspiration. I dusted off my 5 pound weights and did a workout with them tonight. It's a start anyway.