Women, Weights and Results!
What's Estrogen got to do with it?!We can thank our special hormone for keeping women protected with a little extra fat. That's all well and good for baby making and feeding, but, not when we are trying to lose unhealthy extra weight. And when we approach menopause and are no longer childbearing what do we get? Explosive weight gain! Women on average gain 10lbs every decade and loss 5lbs of muscle. Great@$*$#!
So, what can we do?
Well, here are some helpful facts about hormones, women, weights and results.
Fact: Muscle is more metabolically active than fat. Individuals with more muscle mass have a higher resting metabolic rate and are usually leaner.
If we can thank Estrogen for our fluffiness we can thank our minimal amount of Testosterone keeping us from bulking up. So don't worry about looking like he-man.
Although genetics plays a huge part in how our bodies are built and shaped we do have some control over how they look and certainly how they feel. There are 3 different types of body shapes, ectomorphs - long and lean, endomorphs - short and compact, and mesomorphs who are a combination of the previous two.
This gentically inherited body shape determines alot about us, from body temperature, to muscle length. Although we can't change our inherent shape, we can through strength training, change the shape of our muscles. Hyperplasia, changing muscle shape (versus hypertrophy building muscle) happens with high intensity exercise. So to get results and shape your body : WORK IT! HARD!
Luckily for women, we have about 20x more growth hormone than men. Growth hormone is released during short burst of intense training. Growth hormone mobilizes fatty acids in other words, using fat for fuel And that's a good thing when trying to tone up muscles and lose body fat.
So, now what? There are lots of different types of training systems. All of them produce results. Pick you favorite, or just pick one and try it for a month. Then try something else. Don't be afraid to grab the big dumbells -- I promise it'll do your body good!
Here are a few examples...
Plateaus: This is the most common type of training. Lift the same weight and perform the same #of reps for all sets.
Pyramids: Increase the weight as you decrease the # of reps. Reverse Pyramids: As you decrease the weight, increase the # of reps. This type of training is especially effective and fun.
Compound: Follow a single joint exercise by a multi-joint exercise. Ex. Bench Press to Tricep pushdown.
Supersets: Take little to no rest between exercises using opposing muscle groups. Ex. Chest fly to Bent over Row.
Giant Sets: Do 3 or more exercise for the same body part all in a row and then rest.
Forced Reps: Do as many reps as you can at a certain weight, and then a couple more!
Pre-fatique: Especially good for abdominal exercises. Work small muscles then bigger muscles. Ex. Low ab leg drop-oblique side crunches-plank.
HIT(High Intensity Training): Great for Legs! Ex. Choose 8-10 exercise for your legs, perform 1 set of each to failure, or about 8-10 reps at 60-70% of your 1-rep max. This type of training should probably only be done 1 x / week 'cause it's HARD!
I'm currently doing HIT for legs 1 x /week, Reverse pyramids for Triceps and Biceps twice a week, And Supersets for chest and back twice a week. So far so good! It's fun and I am definitley getting stronger!
I'd love to hear what you're up to!
Share story
0 comments: