3 Myths Busted About Women and Weight Training

So ladies, what can weight training do for you? Weight

training will give you near-perfect symmetry and put curves

and definition in all the right places. Muscle is firm and

toned, not soft and mushy. Muscle gives you strength,

health, vitality and a beautiful body. Also, weight

training will decrease your chance of injuries in everyday

life and recreational activities. Weight training improves

work, sleep, endurance, sex and many other areas of your

life.

Myth 1: Women Must Train Differently Then Men



BUSTED: Training for ladies shouldn't differ that much from

men's training. Women have the same number of muscles and

they contact in the same fashion. The only difference

between men and women are hormones.

Men naturally have higher levels of testosterone, a

muscle-building hormone, while women are constantly

fighting the estrogen issue, a fat storing hormone. Now I'm

not saying that just because you are female and have higher

levels of estrogen you are doomed to gain weight. What I'm

saying is that we can use what you have to your advantage.

Regular weight training will build lean body mass. The more

body lean body mass you acquire, the higher you raise your

metabolism. An increased metabolism results in more

calories burned per minute. Sounds interesting? Read on....

Myth 2: Muscle Weighs More Than Fat

BUSTED: A statement I hear a lot is that muscle weighs more

than fat. The fact of the matter is that a pound of muscle

and a pound of fat weigh the same, a pound. A pound of

muscle is more dense and takes up less space than a pound

of fat does.

Muscle allows you to eat more food without getting fat

because muscle is the only body material that is

metabolically active. Once you put muscle on your body you

will burn an additional twenty to thirty calories an hour.

Bodybuilders actually burn fifty to seventy-five additional

calories per hour.

Myth 3: Muscle Turns to Fat

BUSTED: A misconception that I hear many women saying is

that they don't want to workout because if they stop the

muscle will turn to fat. Now, let's analyze this statement.

People begin resistance training program in order to rid

the body of fat, not to gain it. Muscle can't turn into fat

any more than fat can turn to muscle. Muscle (metabolically

active) and fat (metabolically inactive) are two completely

different tissues responsible for their own functions. Just

as your heart and liver are two different organs performing

completely different functions, the same goes for muscle

and fat. Now I ask you, can your heart turn into your

liver, or vise versa? If there were any truth to the above

statement there would be a lot of people out there with

great muscle potential, if you catch my drift.

An explanation to the above myth is that some bodybuilders

do gain extra weight off-season in preparation for the up

coming competitive season. Many veterans of bodybuilding

gain weight when they get older or retire, how does that

differ from the average American?

There is a biological reason for the weight gain. The

metabolism slows down as we age, meaning the body needs

fewer calories per day to maintain itself. The downfall is

that most people, including bodybuilders, don't reduce

their caloric intake to compensate for this slowdown and

the end result is fat gain.

Another explanation is that bodybuilders, in hard training,

develop enormous appetites and need the extra calories for

muscle growth and repair. If the intake stays the same when

training volume is reduced or ceased, the unburned calories

get stored as fat; again, this is no different than the

average American.

Stop Making Excuses

Simply put, stop making excuses. Not exercising is far more

harmful to your body, image, and health than working out.

Exercising and nutrition is a learned lifestyle, if you are

not consistent with it you will decrease muscle and

increase fat, but muscle definitely will never turn into

fat.

Karen Sessions has been in the fitness industry since 1988.

She is a nationally qualified bodybuilder and holds two

personal training certifications. She has written 6 ebooks

on fitness and has helped hundreds of clients transform

their bodies.


its the time to say what you really feel

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