Advice from The First Lady of Fitness, Fashion, and Fun and Pittsburgh Certified Personal Trainer (CPT), Independent, Beachbody Coach, TurboKick Instructor, and life coach, Jackie Omotalade.
Jackie O is the First Lady of Fitness, Fashion and Fun.
She is a Pittsburgh personal trainer, fitness instructor, life coach, motivational speaker, and fashionista. She also moonlights as a socialite.
Strength training is exercise that uses resistance to strengthen and condition the musculoskeletal system, improving muscle tone and endurance. Strength training is used as a general term synonymous with other common terms: weightlifting and resistance training. So many women tell me that they don’t lift weights. Most say it is because they don’t want to bulk up and look like a guy. Others say that they have no idea where to start. A study by the National Center for Health Statistics found that only 21 percent of women strength train two or more times a week. The benefits of strength training are plentiful and most women are missing out on a valuable opportunity to get in the best shape of their lives by not lifting weights. The following are a few of the proven reasons why women should lift weights in additional to their cardiovascular exercise.
(1) You will lose more fat and burn more calories. As your lean muscle increases so does your resting metabolism, and you burn more calories all day long. On average, for each pound of muscle you gain, you burn 35 to 50 more calories each day. Muscle accounts for about a third of the average woman’s weight and because muscle, unlike fat, is metabolically active you burn fat even when you are resting.
(2) You will improve the health of our heart. Weight training increases your blood level of HDL cholesterol (the good type). It also can lower your resting heart rate, a sign of a more efficient heart.
(3) You will be in a better mood. A University of Alabama at Birmingham study fund that people who performed 3 weight workouts a week for 6 months significantly improved their scores on measures of anger and overall mood.
(4) You will get stronger without getting bulky. Women do not possess enough testosterone to significantly increase muscle size unless they use some sort of synthetic supplement. Lifting weights can however make you stronger, which will improve how you function in every aspect of life from work productivity, to chasing your kids around, to helping you sleep better etc.
(5) You will reduce your cancer risk. A University of Florida student found that people who did 3 resistance training workouts a week for 6 months had significantly less oxidative cell damage than people who did no resistance training. Damaged cells can lead to cancer and other diseases, so these result show that lifting weights can help lower your cancer risk.
(6) You will decrease your chance of injury. Lifting weights helps you to strengthen not only your muscles, but your bones, tendons and ligaments, which causes an overall increase in strength that can help reduce or prevent the development of arthritis, osteoporosis, aging, injuries and other degenerative diseases.
(7) You will improve at sports. Professional athletes follow some type of strength training program to keep them strong and avoid injuries. Sport specific weight training can help you improve your power, strength and speed to make you a better athlete.
(8) You will look better. Weight training helps you develop toned muscles, which will make your body look leaner and you feel sexier. Lifting weights is the sure fire way to get sexy toned arms and legs.
(9) You will improve your flexibility. Your flexibility over time can decrease by up to 50%. A study in the International Journal of Sports indicated that 3 full body workouts a week for 16 weeks increased flexibility of the hips and shoulders as well as improving the sit-and-reach test scores by 11 percent.
(10) Your bones will thank you. Strength training increases bone density, which in turn lowers the risk of later developing osteoporosis and brittle bones.
