Weight training is good for your health. You may find that you are not challenging yourself with weight training to make noticeable gains because of fear that you will build big bulky muscles or decrease your flexibility. Many misconceptions can stop you from embracing weight training, so you can sculpt your body.
Function and Form
You wear heels daily and pick up objects with your lower back. The lower back needs strengthening in order to do basic exercises like squats properly without causing more injury. Wearing heels can cause lower abdominal weakness and lower back tightness. The core area, your lower back and abs, are your stabilizing muscles. They give you proper posture for all your daily activities, including exercise form.
Progressive Overload
This principle of overload is to gradually increase the workload your muscles experience during training. Adding more weight to challenge your muscles along with increasing reps is fundamental to weight training. Women tend to avoid lifting heavier weight because of the fear of becoming muscular. You don't produce enough male hormones to develop muscles like a man. You should start with a repetitions in the range of eight to 12 per set. Once you have mastered the weight for 12 reps, then you will need to increase your workload by 2 percent to 5 percent and start again with eight reps to avoid overtraining, according to American College of Sports Medicine guidelines.
Bone Benefit of Weight Training
Increased bone density is a superb reason for weight training. The muscles you train will pull on your bones; this starts a chain reaction of the body depositing more calcium in bones of exercised muscles. To reduce the back hump, which is seen in osteoporotic women, exercises that stress the spine will increase the bone mass. Performing squats with a barbell across your shoulders, seated cable rows, dead lifts, and stiff legged dead lifts stress the muscles that run down your spine.
Considerations with Weight Training
When putting together a weight training routine, you will need to exercise all body parts. Weight training will only alter the muscle size and strength, not the fat covering it. Spot reduction is a myth. If you are in question about what to do, seek out a personal trainer or dietitian who does both to help you design a routine and tailor your diet to reduce your body fat.
Keeping Training Fresh
You will want to change your routine periodically to keep your muscles challenged. You can make simple changes to your routine such as reducing rest time between sets, performing each set faster, or changing the order in which you do your exercises. These changes can keep your muscles challenged before necessarily increasing the weight you are using, according to ACSM. These slight changes in your routine can help you break through a mental or training plateau.
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