Myths of Women and Weightlifting

There are a lot of people out there that still believe many of myths about women lifting weights. Today’s post is going to cover two big ones. I want people, especially females, to know that lifting weights is extremely valuable, especially if your goal is weight loss or fat loss.

If you still fall into this line of thinking, I hope this post will help change your mind. Without further ado, here are two of the biggest myths surrounding women and strength training.

Photo Credit: http://muscle.iuhu.org/2011/09/female-bodybuilder-squats-more-than-a-man/

1) Lifting heavy weights will make you look like a man.

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard this. I see it all the time at the gym too. In fact, the other week I saw a women curling a 3 pound dumbbell! But let me tell you it is absolutely false!

One of the big reasons men can gain a large amount of muscle mass is because they can produce a greater amount of testosterone. Women on the other hand, produce more estrogen. They are able to make testosterone which helps build muscle and burn fat, but not to the degree men can.

Another reason is that they do not usually consume enough calories to gain a significant amount of weight. When men are trying to gain weight they can be eating thousands and thousands of calories to do so. This has a significant impact on the lean mass. Women, on the other hand, do not really do this. Meals are usually consumed until the point of satisfaction. Case in point, I usually end up eating the rest of my wife’s meals because she is to full to finish them.

These two in combination give men the ability to gain a lot of muscle mass. This is honestly one that women should not worry about at all. Women are not physically able to produce the amount of testosterone that men do. Plus, they usually are not trying to eat more calories than they need. So please do not believe this!

2) Cardio will help me burn more fat than lifting weights.

How many times do you see the women on all the cardio pieces when you walk into a gym? That’s because they believe to lose weight (or whatever their goal) they have to perform endless amounts of cardiovascular work (treadmill, elliptical). Again, this is incorrect.

First, lifting weights increases your ability to burn calories after a workout to a much greater degree than long duration cardio. This is referred to as EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption). This process is what allows your body to return to homeostasis (your resting state before exercise). You have to clear waste and bring in nutrients to muscles in order to do this. All of this burns calories. Weightlifting is superior to cardio in this regard.

Second, lifting weights allows you to increase your muscle mass. Increased muscle mass leads to increased metabolism. Increased metabolism leads to more calories burned on a daily basis. All of this adds up to less weight and less fat in a given time period. Cardio, on the other, does nothing for muscle mass. It isn’t bad to do cardiovascular work, it just isn’t the answer you are looking for when trying to burn fat.

Third, resistance training elevates your muscle building hormones like testosterone and growth hormone. This allows you to build muscle. Cardio elevates cortisol, a stress hormone. This hormone places your muscles in a catabolic environment, meaning you break down muscle tissue. If you lose muscle mass, you are not as effective at burning calories.

Lastly, muscle mass has been shown to have an inverse relationship with death (1). This means, the stronger you are the longer you will live. As I mentioned earlier, strength training builds muscle. The more muscle mass you have the stronger you will be. The study I referenced was conducted on men though. However, I would be willing to bet that it is very similar for women.

Now you may be reading all of this and wondering “I haven’t seen any evidence of this”. Well, here are some studies showing the benefits of resistance training.

– One study showed that there was no difference in weight loss between groups who exercised at 78% of their maximal heart rate for 45 minutes 5 days per week and those who only dieted. This essentially made the exercise a waste in terms of work done to lose weight (2).

– In this 12 week study, 3 groups were created. One was diet only, the second was diet + aerobic exercise, and the third was diet + aerobic exercise + resistance training. The aerobic exercise was performed 5 days a week from 30-50 minutes. The overall results were: the diet group lost 14.6 lbs of fat, the diet + aerobics group lost 15.6 lbs of fat, and the diet +aerobics + resistance training lost 21.1 lbs pounds of fat. That was a 44% and 35% increase from the other two groups (3)!

– Another study showed that EPOC was elevated 38 hours after a strength training protocol that included  4 sets of 10 repetitions of 3 exercises. The workout last 31 minutes (4).

There you have it! Two of the biggest myths debunked, along with some research to support it. I hope this shed a lot of light on the subject of women and strength training. There is some great evidence out there showing how resistance training is a better bang for your buck.

Women need to be lifting heavy weight. If your goal is to lose fat, it is a sure fire way to drop inches. Give it a try! You will not only feel incredible doing so, but you will look incredible too.

If you are looking for a personal trainer in Savannah, contact me to set up a consultation.

And if you found any of this information helpful, or know of someone it could help please share with others!

References:
1) Ruiz, J.R. et al. Association between muscular strength and mortality in men: prospective cohort study. BMJ 2008:337:A439.

2) Utter, A.C. et al. Influence of diet and/or exercise on body composition and cardiorespiratory fitness in obese women. Int J Sport Nutr. 1998. Sep, 8(3):213-22.

3) Kramer, V et al. Influence of exercise training on physiological and performance changes with weight loss in men. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1999. 31(9):1320-29.

4) Schuenke, M.D. et al. Effect of an period of resistance exercise on excess post-exercise oxygen consumption: implications for body mass management. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2002. 86(5):411-7.