14 DAY TRIAL // As a rule, many women believe weight training is the last thing they should try when it comes to toning up. In doing so, they harbor under the impression that lifting weights builds muscle mass, which, understandably, would make them less feminine and more butch than they’d like to be. They’re wrong to believe that, the New York Times says, citing recent research.
That women should not strength train is a myth that health experts and fitness instructors have been trying to destroy for quite some time, repeatedly stressing that building muscle mass is the ideal way to tone up and lose weight faster. Now, they’re stepping forward to tell all the ladies looking for a leaner physique that, in order to get it, they need to lift heavier weights and do less reps, the aforementioned publication informs.
“Lifting heavy weights makes you big and bulky – or at least that’s the conventional wisdom. It’s the reason many women (and some men) who want slim and ‘toned’ physiques opt for lighter weights, lifted more times. […] For people who lift weights to tone up and slim down, experts say, a regimen that includes a combination of challenging weights and fewer repetitions can help significantly. In a 2002 study, for example, scientists looked at what happened when women performed various resistance exercises at different weights and repetitions (85 percent of their maximum ability for 8 reps, versus 45 percent for 15). Subjects lifting more weight fewer times burned more energy and had a greater metabolic boost after exercise,” the NYT writes.
A more recent study comes to corroborate the theory. “In another study published last year, scientists followed 122 women for six years. They found that those who were assigned to do resistance exercises three times a week – sets of 8 reps at 70 to 80 percent of their ability – lost the most weight and body fat. A similar two-year study of women who did strength training with challenging weight twice weekly found similar effects on body and ‘intra-abdominal’ fat,” the same media outlet goes on to say.
The conclusion is simple: first of all, women should under no circumstance avoid weight training under the pretense that it will make them masculine. Secondly, they need to replace the weights they use with heavier ones, to build more muscle mass and lose weight faster.