Strength Over Bulk: How Women Benefit From Weightlifting Exercises

A lot of us ladies skip out on weight training with the fear that we’ll bulk up too much, but that isn’t necessarily the case! There are so many benefits to lifting weights and that includes weight loss, not just muscle gain.

The way you lift weights influences your muscle growth. High repetition, low weight workouts tend to improve muscle endurance without significant hypertrophy – a fancy word for muscle growth. Keep your weights on the lighter side and you’ll gain some strength but won’t find yourself bulking up. These types of sets will keep your muscles toned, which is optimal!

Lifting weights and performing resistance exercises will make you stronger! You don’t have to have huge muscles to be strong. Having more strength makes even the most mundane of tasks easier, such as moving furniture, cleaning up and playing with the kids.

Strength training can help the body to lose fat. Research suggests that strength training and resistance exercises may increase metabolic rate, this is because compared to cardio, after you do a strength training exercise, your body will continue to burn calories as your muscle tissue recovers.

As you lift weights, your muscles and tendons are applying tension to your bones, and this stimulates your bones to produce more bone tissue! So not only does weightlifting strengthen your muscles, it strengthens your bones too, which may help reduce the chances of developing osteoporosis.   

Lifting weights can help you maintain balance! When you lift a weight, you’re activating a lot of muscles to control the weight. You’re triggering your core, shoulders, hips and ankles which are crucial to balance. If you’re frequently engaging in weightlifting, then you’re inadvertently bettering your co-ordination and balance!