If you are an athlete who wants to improve your sports performance or just increase your strength, resistance training is a popular option. Contrary to common misconceptions, women cannot become bulky the way men can from lifting weights. Professional female bodybuilders achieve their impressive physiques from years of heavy lifting and strict diets. Be injury free and have a foundation of cardio fitness before adding weightlifting to your exercise program.
Begin with Two Weekly Sessions
Start with a foundation of lifting weights twice a week, doing eight to 12 reps, for one to three sets for three months. In each session, do eight to 12 exercises, as the American Academy of Sports Recommendation advises. Do one weekly session for the upper body and the other for the lower body.
Add a Third Weekly Session
After three months, add a third weekly session. Vary your strength training by doing different exercises in each workout or at least do them in a different order. For example, if you do eight to 12 exercises for the upper body on Monday that uses dumbbells, on Wednesday, do legs using exercise machines such as the leg press, seated leg extensions and hamstring curls. On Friday, depending on what you determine you need to build more strength, upper or lower body, work those muscle groups doing different exercises. For example, if it's upper body strength, do seated rows, standing triceps and lat pulldowns.
Circuit Training
Do circuit training at least once a week after you have completed six months of regular weekly resistance training. Circuit training is when you perform one exercise after another with little rest between each one. This way, you keep your heart rate elevated. For example, for a leg circuit workout, you might do walking dumbbell lunges, followed by seated double leg abduction, seated leg adduction, leg extensions, hamstring curls, heel raises and leg press. Depending on your fitness goals, stay with eight to 12 reps or lower the total weight and do more reps, says Sherry Gideon, a professional bodybuilder with Bodybuilding.com.
Super Sets
After another three months of three weekly sessions of weightlifting that includes one circuit session, add supersets. Supersets are when you do two or more exercises that work the same muscle groups. You can take recovery time so that the workout is not like a circuit. A chest and back superset might include any combination of two or more of the following: lying dumbbell chest press, flyes, bicep curls, tricep kickbacks, pullups, jumping jacks and pushups. Supersets build enormous strength but are appropriate after at least six to nine months of regular weekly, gradual training.
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