Busting Myths About Women and Strength Training

1. You will become big and bulky, suddenly ready to join the ranks of competitive female body builders. This is the biggest fear, and quite honestly makes me giggle a little!  Women who decide to build muscle to the point where they are ready for competition are very RARE!  It takes a combination of genetics, a killer work ethic, specifically designed programs dictating how they eat, supplements, and endless hours at the gym!  Unless you are going to change every facet of your life, you won’t bulk!
2. Women should only do light weights with lots of repetitions. This is great for endurance, but not strength!  It also doesn’t create that strong healthy look you see on magazine covers!  I don’t know about you, but my day includes lifting children, groceries, baskets of laundry, moving furniture, even the occasional moment when I have to change my own tire!  Strength training with heavy weights is what is going to help with that!  So feel free to throw out that 2lb dumbbell, and pick something up that takes more effort than the vacuum cleaner!
3. Women only need to do cardio. Cardio is an important part of every fitness program, but it is just a component!  You may think you are getting the best of calorie burning because you feel sweaty and winded, but strength training burns calories for up to 48 hours!  The process of building muscle starts when you begin lifting heavier weights.  This causes micro tears in the muscle fibers.  Over the next couple of days, those tears repair themselves and become stronger, thus creating new muscle.  During this entire process your body uses calories from the foods you eat and the fat you have stored to make these repairs to itself!
4. Muscle burns fat. Yes and no, your body uses energy from calories for fuel.  You can do all the strength training in the world, and if you aren’t eating the right foods, you won’t lose that weight and get lean.  That being said, if you are not eating healthy body fueling food, your body won’t discriminate and will take calories from wherever it needs to, be it fat or muscle!  When you are eating the right foods at a caloric deficit, the calories needed to repair your muscles will help you lose fat!
5. Muscle turns in to fat when you stop working out. Not a chance!  If you stop working out, you simply lose the muscle you developed and since you’re not exercising, the fat you worked so hard to get rid of returns.  If you do find a way to turn muscle to fat, let me know, I have some lead that needs to be turned into gold!
6. Muscle weighs more than fat. This has to be my favorite!  It may come as a shock to you, but 1 lb of muscle weighs the same as one lb of fat, which weighs the same as 1 lb of feathers.  They all weigh 1lb!  The difference is mass vs. density.   Fat has lots of mass, so 1 lb is spread out over a larger area and takes up more space.  Muscle has less mass, and much higher density.  This is what gives you that toned tight appearance everyone wants!

Next time you are in the gym, if you aren’t seeing results, let us know!  We are here to help you reach your goals!  You don’t need to work with a trainer 5 times a week for hours at a time, but, you will likely find that a few sessions to build the best program for YOU will put you on the right path, and you WILL begin to see results!