Fit Girl • muffintop-less: 3 Weight Lifting Myths...

3 Weight Lifting Myths Debunked!

Myth: “Weight lifting will make me manly and bulky! I don’t want to look like a bodybuilder!”

Fact: This could not be further from the truth. Women do not have the levels of testosterone necessary to bulk up the way men do. Female bodybuilders have been consistently eating and training a specific way AND taking anabolic steroids for years to achieve the physique they have!

Attaining a body like that takes serious focus and years to accomplish. It will not happen overnight and certainly will not happen by accident.

Myth: “Women shouldn’t lift heavy weights. They should use light weights an high repetitions to tone up!”

Fact: If you want to spend years achieving what could have taken a few months, go right on ahead and play with the beauty bells. If you want to build a tight, lean physique in a short amount of time, pick up the heavy weights. As you just learned, women do not have the hormonal profile necessary to bulk up like men. So relax ladies, you won’t pick up a heavy dumbbell and wake up the next morning looking like the Incredible Hulk.

It takes hard work to “tone”. If it were easy and anyone could do it with light weights, wouldn’t everyone be in shape? There’s no point in lifting a weight lighter than the things you lift everyday (water bottles, your purse, a hair dryer… you get the idea). Do those activities tone you? NO. So pick up the heavy weights.

Myth: “I’m going to just do cardio until I reach my goal weight, then I’ll start lifting weights to tone up.”

Fact: Many girls falsely believe doing hours of cardio and starving themselves will result in fat loss. The weight they are ACTUALLY losing is primarily water and lean muscle. Loss of lean muscle mass will result in a “skinny fat” look and a slowed metabolism. Once that occurs, it becomes MUCH more likely that the body will store fat!

The more muscle you have on your frame, the faster your metabolism will be and the more calories you will burn JUST BY BEING ALIVE… NOT DOING ANYTHING! Muscle burns approximately 3x as many calories as the same amount of fat. So with that increased metabolism, it will become a whole heck-of-a-lot easier to lose excess body fat, because you will be burning a lot more calories even when you’re not exercising! With a faster metabolism, that also means you will be able to eat more without having to worry about “getting fat”.. this will make it easier to stick to… and more likely to become a LIFESTYLE.

Perfect article! I have to say this to my new female clients over and over again!

Many girls come to the studio and say “I don’t want to look bulky. I want to look like you. You don’t lift weights, you just do toning, don’t you?”…that’s the moment when I could secretly slap the persons face as I feel so massively offended that they think I achieved this look with lifting 1kg weights a hundred times.

I normally respond “Toning? Me??? I lift heavier than some guys here. I do very advanced bodyweight exercises like dead hang pull ups, single arm press ups, weighted full body weight dips or hand stand press ups. To be able to do them as a girl, you got to be VERY strong. I did NOT achieve this with TONING exercises. I’m just small because I have close to no body fat and I don’t take steroids. And if you want to look like this then you have to train VERY hard.”

Well, most of our girls got it now…and lift heavy:) They actually love their new muscles in their arms and give really everything. I LOVE that!

(via foreverstrongandfit-deactivated)

Source: muffintop-less