This doesn’t happen..
This does.I’ve said this hundreds of times, and I’ll keep saying it until everyone hears me: Gaining muscle is not easy. It doesn’t just happen. It takes serious amounts of hard, heavy training and even serious-er(?) amounts of eating. If it was easy, anyone who hit up the gym would be stepping on stage in their undies competing for whatever glory you get from doing that! On top of the huge amounts of food and training there’s also the biological factors such as hormone levels, which women simply don’t have. So unless you’re using chemical supplementation, you will never look like our green friend up top!Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about what lifting weights does do. To list but a few:

• Rips fat clean off your body
• Tones your arms, stomach, thighs, shoulders, you name it
• Strengthens bones and makes you accident proof
• Gives you a bum J-Lo and Shakira’s love child would be jealous of
• Increases your strength and ability to do everyday things easier
• Boosts self-confidence, self-image and gives you a better outlook on life

Side note: When I say lifting weights, I mean lifting moderately heavy stuff, regularly. I don’t mean a million bicep curls and a few sets on the lat pull down machine. I’m talking about Squats, Deadlifts, Pull ups, Push ups, Lunges, Dumbbell Rows, the works.

Fat Burn:

Muscle burns fat by increasing your metabolism to repair damaged muscle cells. So the more muscle we “damage” during training, the longer our bodies will be working to repair and rebuild.

Muscles:

Without getting too sciencey, strength training rather than hypertrophy training(bodybuilding style training) causes muscles to become denser, without looking pumped up like a balloon. This is due to the fact that your body learns to use more muscle fibers, that it already has. This is also why strength gains come so fast at the beginning, your body has never had to use these muscle fibers before. OK, back on point, this thicker/denser muscle along with the fat loss effect, gives the muscle a more toned and defined took that everyone searches for in the million rep aisle.

This chick is stronger than a lot of men I know, but does’t look like any men I know!Bones and connective tissue:

Think about this: You’re hammering your muscles with strength training. Your muscles are connected to your bones to by tendons. The muscle pulls on the tendon and the tendon pulls on the bone to move. All of these things are going to to be strengthened by the stresses but on them. This is why strength training is such a good way to combat osteoporosis which is particularly prominent in women.

Confidence:

When you’ve heaved your bodyweight or more off the ground, there isn’t many other things in your day that will seem challenging. Strength is relative, but the same applies to anyone. Some of the most bad ass looking girls I know can deadlift their bodyweight for 2-3 reps and can do 5+ unassisted chin ups. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want some more self-confidence in their every day life.

So there you have it:

Getting strong before anything else will lay the foundation for any goal you may have. But, for the majority of ladies looking to shed some pounds and gain that confidence they want in the gym, in work or in life, it could be the only thing you need to work at for the next while.

Cheers,

Sean