Why Weight?

There are a million varying ideas as to what women should be doing in regards to weight training. Advice ranges from the traditional low-weight + high rep combination, to skipping weights all together. I know that some of you have been told that if you lift heavy weights you will turn out looking like Popeye after he has his spinach. I want to clear up some of these conflicting ideas by telling you what I think. Now this is all based on my own personal information, gathered from a book here and a magazine there but most importantly from my own experience.

Have you ever heard the expression "use it or lose it"? Good because if you don't use your muscle you will lose it. Think of a person who has been in a comma for months. When they wake up they can hardly walk, sit up or even talk. This is due to extreme muscle atrophy. Meaning their muscles weaken to a point where simple everyday tasks are a chore. This can happen to you and your body, maybe not in such an extreme way, but along the same lines. Take me for example, I haven't really danced since I was eighteen and tried out for the UVSC dance team. Every once in a while I get the urge to leap and turn again so I go upstairs to the little gym room and I test out my skills. I have learned that even though I remember how to do the moves, I struggle to get my fat arse off the ground when leaping. This is because my dancing muscles have weakened. I didn't use them and so I lost them.

Let me give you a statistic. The average woman gains twenty four pounds between the ages of twenty five and sixty five. This weight gain, when stretched over the 40 year time period, comes out to 8 extra calories a day. That's right, 8! Want to lose 10 pounds in a year and three inches off of your waist? Then simply cut 100 calories from your diet each day. (That doesn't mean that you will end up weighing zero pounds after 13 years, be reasonable ladies.) Now listen to this little tidbit about muscle. Every pound of muscle burns between 40 and 120 calories a day just to sustain itself. If you increase your muscle you will increase your bodies natural calorie burning capacity. To parallel the massive calorie burn of the muscle, let's realize that one pound of fat burns 1 to 3 calories per day. Ew! The last little fact I want to mention is startling. If you are at a stable weight at the age of 35 and don't do any resistance training, you will need to consume 120-420 fewer calories per day just to maintain that weight.

Now that we know muscle is incredibly important, let's talk about the best ways to weight train. First let's learn something, to be considered fit in a muscular sense, a 30 year old woman should be able to do 45 push ups on her knees. This is where we should start. It may seem more exciting to head to the gym and train on all of the fancy equipment but really you can get a good workout without all of the mechanics. Seriously, how many push ups can you do? Can you do 50 walking lunges on each leg? Can you put your feet under the couch and do 30 sit-ups in a minute? Start with the basics and then move on up. When I say move on up I mean it too. Don't grab the 5 pound dumbbells and do 30 bicep curls. That is like using a rubber chicken to tone your arms, pretty un-realistic. Grab a dumbbell that feels heavy and curl it until the point of exhaustion. If this is a 20 pound weight, then do the 5,8 or 10 reps that it takes to fatigue that muscle. There is no point in pretending to build muscle. Do it, commit, lift weight not toys shaped like weights.

Obviously everyone is different. But I know that for me and for the other people I have trained with, this is the most effective way. When I really challenge my muscles I see results because I am building muscle. Before I was married I wanted to get in serious shape but I was having terrible knee pain. It was so bad that I almost couldn't make it to class from my car. I went to see an orthopedic surgeon and he told me that if I wanted to be able to "walk down the aisle" I should stop all cardiovascular exercise. I was stunned, how did he expect me to lose weight for my honeymoon without being able to run or even use the elliptical? Instead of giving up and getting soggy, I committed myself to a new and serious weight training program. I was intense in my workouts and I got in great shape. My muscle tone was incredible and I actually looked like I worked out. I am not recommending that you skip all cardio because it is sooo good for your body, but I am suggesting that you take weight training seriously. Don't forget your muscles, give them some tough love and make em' burn. Why "weight"? Get fit by increasing your muscle mass and getting off or your...tush! ;)