Why We All Need To Strength Train For Women

Having celebrated a big birthday recently has made me more sentimental about aging than normal. But with sentimentality comes complaints. Granted, they're not in a "woe-is-me" kind of way, but with a bit more humor and irony attached to them. Humor? My feeling is that if we don't laugh about creaky joints, gray hair and diminishing eyesight, hearing and skin tone, then all that bitching becomes whiny.

And who wants to listen to a whiner, any way ”especially an aging whiner? Irony? To be deliberately contrary sure helps make things funny, don't you think? Anyhow, what I'm getting at is this so-called aging can't be avoided, unless you don't want to be around anymore. So we might as well do the best we can with it.

And that includes staying strong. Strength training is just as important a part of your fitness routine as is doing cardiovascular work. But sadly, so many women ignore it because they don't have time. Or they're afraid of developing big muscles (that's a fallacy, by the way). Or they're too intimidated to even try.

The American Council on Exercise says that unless you regularly engage in activities to strengthen your muscles, you'll lose about a half a pound of muscle a year in your 30s and 40s. Once you turn 50, they say, that rate can double.

What is Strength Training?

Eat right and lift heavy.

If there’s one constant thing we say across Nerd Fitness, it’s that if you want to lose weight, gain muscle, or just look better than ever for an upcoming event, the two things you must do is eat right and lift heavy.

But what exactly does that mean?  And how do you get started? And why does this work so darn well? We’ve touched on it a few times before, gone over your diet, and shown you some people it’s worked for, but we haven’t really gone into great detail.

Today that changes.

This is the first in a series of articles from NF Team Member Staci, covering all things strength training. Today we’ll be covering the basics before we tackle each movement in more detail.

Why strength training?

First of all, lets face it: Putting everything else aside, life is EASIER when you’re strong.  Carrying groceries? One trip. Children to carry? No problem. Car stuck in the snow? Push it out with ease. Plus, whether you’re 100 lbs overweight or just need to lose the last 15, strength training is one of the most effective ways to burn fat and build muscle.

Lifting has been shown to halt and even reverse sarcopenia – the reduction of skeletal muscle that occurs as we get older  which helps us stay independent (and out of a nursing home) and live longer.But in addition to making life easier, strength training has a lot of great benefits right now.  Here are just a few: Look Good Naked: Strength training helps you lose weight (and body fat) in a few different ways.  First, it helps you retain the muscle you have while eating a calorie deficit and losing weight.

Second, strength training has a much greater level of excess post-exercise oxygen consumption than aerobic exercise.  What does this mean?  When you finish a workout, your body needs to do a lot of work to replenish itself in order to bring itself back to a normal state (the way it was before you worked out).  This takes a lot of energy, and some studies have shown that it can boost your 

metabolism for up to 38 hours after you finish your workout.......... Read More.......