Is it ok for women to use multigym/weights?
admin | Feb 11, 2009 | 3 comments
unwell_lady asked:
I don’t wana be a body builder but I just wana tone up… My boyfriend is getting one and will it be ok for me to use it too?
I don’t wana be a body builder but I just wana tone up… My boyfriend is getting one and will it be ok for me to use it too?
Filed Under: Cardio
Absolutely! Women can and really should use gym equipment. How you get to be ‘body building’ big is by the amount of weight used, amount of time used on the equipment. It is prefectly acceptable for women to use gym equipment.
I put the women I train on it all the time….they do really well.
Absolutely. Just keep the weights pretty light — not too light that they don’t challenge you, but definitely not too heavy either — and go for higher numbers of reps per set.
Go for 15 to 20 reps per set. If the weight is too heavy for you to do that many reps, then obviously it means you have to go with a lighter weight.
When you’re resting after one set of a given weight exercise (call it Exercise A), don’t just stand around waiting until you’re ready to do the next set of Exercise A. Go and do a set of another exercise (Exercise B) instead.
For instance, after a set of an upper-body exercise (lat pulldowns, rows, whatever), go do a lower-body or abs exercise. Then go back to the upper-body one you were doing and do your second set. Then go back to the lower-body or abs exercise.
You can even have three exercise going at once — for instance, an arm or shoulder exercise, an abs or core exercise, and a lower body exercise.
I usually do about 45 minutes of weights (high reps, pretty light weights) — and because I’m doing it the way I described above (doing Exercise B while I’m resting from Ex. A), I don’t have much down time during those 45 minutes. I’m spending almost all of those 45 minutes lifting or pulling something!
I then follow that up with 30 to 45 minutes of cardio (usually running on the treadmill or hitting the stairmaster).
Doing your cardio AFTER your weights is great for toning up, burning fat, and keeping your body weight down.
Researchers have found that doing weights boosts your metabolism and kick-starts your body’s weight-loss and fat-burning mode, which makes the time AFTER doing weights a prime time for cardio exercise.
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You won’t become a bodybuilder. Women do not have the hormonal environment necessary to put on a lot of muscle mass. Female bodybuilders — the ones with physiques like men — are usually this way because they are using steroids.
Weight training should be a staple of any woman’s workout regimen. Weight training helps burn fat for hours after exercising (unlike cardio which tends to burn fat only during the activity) and the additional lean muscle not only looks great (that’s the toning that women always talk about), but it also has additional fat-burning benefits.
Resistance training has been shown to have all kinds of health benefits for women, including staving off osteoporosis, increasing metabolism, improving strength and coordination and even improving cardiovascular health and insulin sensitivity.
Finally, even if you go heavy with your weights, you still we not be able to get big and bulky – not enough testosterone to add that kind of mass. You’ll just be stronger and tighter. In fact, as you progress, don’t be afraid to use more weight. Too many women do high-rep, low-weight resistance training because they think it will tone them up or burn more fat. It won’t — it just increases muscle endurance. Instead, focus on using a weight that will allow you to do no more than 8-15 reps. You’ll have much better results this way.
If women spent just a fraction of the time in the weight room as they did on the treadmill, they would be much happier with their fat-loss and overall health and fitness.
Best of luck!