KOCHI: Should women lift? Yes, women can and should build lean muscle. No, they won’t look bulky due to lower levels of testosterone and higher levels of estrogen and progesterone. But why should women build lean muscle? Why should women do strength/weight training, also known as resistance training?Lifting weights or strength training helps you live in a healthier, stronger body. One of the first reasons for incorporating strength training is for effective weight loss. You must be thinking you need a lot of cardio for weight loss, or rather, fat loss.
That’s true, you need cardio, you need yoga, but you also need weight training to fuel that fat loss further. The huge advantage to strength training is your body’s ability to burn fat during and after exercise. After a good session of strength training, you continue to consume additional oxygen in the hours and even days that follow for muscle recovery from all the wear and tear exercise and lifting has caused. And hence the calorie burn lasts longer.
As you build muscle, your body begins to take a nice hourglass shape. A toned look, lifted butt, strong abs, great looking arms are all possible with strength training. A study published in the International SportMed Journal suggests that morning resistance training or high intensity training greatly affects the quality of sleep and lengthens the time of sleep the night after training. So this means, strength training can actually help you sleep better, which is key to great health.
Most importantly, as you age, women are at risk of losing both bone and muscle mass. This is the degeneration process and while you cannot stop it, you can certainly delay it. Postmenopausal women are at a greater risk for osteoporosis because the body no longer secretes estrogen. Resistance training is an excellent way to combat loss of bone mass, and it decreases the risk of osteoporosis. The earlier you begin weightlifting, the greater chance you have to maintain bone health later in life.
Last but not least, strength training, weight training or resistance training, improves memory and cognitive function. Every woman must feel strong and confident. The woman of today is a multitasker, from managing and running around with her kids, to doing household chores and moving furniture to dealing with career to dealing with so many hormonal changes throughout your life. Resistance training can benefit in all aspects of your life. Add it into your weekly fitness routine and you can thank me later.
(The author is a fitness expert with Cure.fit)