Strength Training for Women?

Alright readers, this is my first go at a blog post, so bear with me, hopefully I’ll get better as I go.

the first topic I’d like to discuss is the importance of strength training for women. Strength training has long been a crucial component of physical fitness, but who do we picture when it comes to lifting weights, big muscly men or the impressively ripped women you see doing body building competitions? We seldom think of our moms or the young woman in your building in yoga clothes as weight lifters. Many have been led to believe that lifting weights is solely for bodybuilders or that it may lead to a bulky physique. However, strength training is not only beneficial but essential for women of all ages.

Strength Training should be a regular part of your workout regime, especially as we age, and reach the terrifying stage of menopause, we’ll discuss that egregious stage of life another day!

Strength Training builds lean muscle and helps strengthen those tendons and ligaments that surround all of our important joints, and I can tell you from experience, the older we get the harder it is to heal from those strains and sprains. Keeping our muscles, joints, tendons and ligaments strong, can help keep you on your toes and not laid up on the couch.

As we age and our hormones deplete and along goes our bone density with those hormones, which can lead to osteoporosis. Strength training helps build bone density and strength to help avoid these afflictions of age.

Now let’s talk about metabolism, plateau much?! Muscle is more metabolically active than fat so that means you burn more calories at rest the more muscle you have. Who doesn’t want to burn those extra calories while watching your favorite show, or scrolling through Insta?

My favorite part of strength training is the mental health benefits. Now I might just plug Fierce Fitness for a second here, after all I do own the place, so probably should give it a mention. I cannot tell you, not one time ever, that I have gone to Fierce and not left in a better mood than when I got there, no matter what my mood was to begin with. Having a supportive community certainly helps with that. It is a proven fact, and I’m not going to site a bunch of studies because I know the proof when I see it in my clients and feel it in myself, that physical activity and exercise improves mental health. It won’t solve your problems or fix your plumbing headaches, but it will release serotonin into your blood stream to give you that mood boost. If I put the focus on me, even for just that few hours a week when I’m at the gym, I know I’m a stronger person, physically sure, but mentally as well.

These are only some of the benefits of strength training for women, there are so many more. I’m not saying go to some big box gym, insert name here, and find the heaviest weights you can find and bang out some biceps curls, find a place you feel safe and comfortable, whether that be in your living room, curling soup cans and doing step-ups on your stairs, or finding a gym that supports you wherever you are in your life’s journey, hint hint, and get stronger than you were yesterday, it’s never too late to start.