Will lifting weights make me bulky?!

~Why is being strong important?~

Being strong is so important for females of any age – from building up strength to help withstand the rigours of child birth, to maintaining strong legs and helping avoid arthritis in later years. I always encourage females to empower themselves and lift heavy stuff and be as strong as possible.

Unfortunately the myth that lifting weights makes you bulky is one that has put many females off entering the gym or doing weight bearing exercises.

The main reason that women will struggle to gain as much muscle as men is due to low testosterone levels. Without the use of anabolic steroids, women have much less potential for muscle growth than men.

Physiologically, it’s just hard for women to gain muscle!

~What are the benefits of lifting weights to women?~

– Major confidence boost – every woman I’ve ever trained or ever spoken to about training has noticed a significant improvement in self confidence from getting stronger!

– Burns more calories than cardio- Training hard with free weights/doing weight bearing exercises for an hour will burn more calories than an hour on the treadmill

– Postive more achievable goals – working towards a full press up, a full chin up and a bodyweight squat are much more positive goals than ‘i need to lose 5lbs’ and actually easier to achieve!

– Pain relief- Most people do not use their glutes (butt) effectively, which means every day tasks such as picking things from the floor is undertaken by the back muscles which leads to back pain. Training the glutes (bum) using exercises such as deadlifts and squats means they will be used more effectively and therefore less back pain!

– For strength- I’ve never met anyone who didn’t want to be stronger! Both physically and in mindset!

– Burn more calories while resting -The more lean muscle you have ( which you get from lifting weights), the more calories you burn at rest

– Get leaner – Show me a woman who can do an unassisted chin up who hasn’t got toned arms. Show me a woman who can do 10 full press ups who is worried about their bingo wings. Show me a woman who can squat their own bodyweight who hasn’t got toned legs.

– Fun! Hours on the cross trainer get tedious…

So ladies, forget about your month long juice cleanses and ditch those 1kg dumbbells. Empower yourself and get stronger! The rest will follow…I promise!