The National Center for Health Statistics reports that approximately 21 percent of women weight train two or more times per week. When done safely, weight training offers a variety of health and physical benefits in just 20 to 30 minutes every other day. 1
Weight training uses approximately two hundred calories an hour. It uses more depending on your size, length of workout, intensity performed, and your natural metabolism. Weight training helps increase muscle tissue, which tones up your body as well as makes it more efficient at losing fat. This happens because with more muscle tissue, you’ll have a faster metabolism.
If you’re overweight, you could benefit greatly from weight training. Just get your doctor’s approval first. Weight training increases muscle tissue, which burns calories more efficiently than untoned muscle or fat tissue—even while your body fat is at rest.
Weight training is the perfect exercise for muscle toning and conditioning. By using specific exercises, you can add or subtract inches to create a more proportional physique. Body-shaping results appear quickly—usually in six to eight weeks.
Weight training builds strength, which in turn helps you perform better in sports and may protect you from some sports related injuries. Such resistance training with weights helps increase bone mass to help guard against the loss of bone mineral as a result of aging.
Studies have shown that weight training is likely to improve your body image and boost your self-confidence. Unlike dance and sports, weight training requires less skill and coordination, and therefore is easy to learn.
Weight training involves a certain investment in a gym or health club membership. Costs vary, starting as low as one hundred and upwards of several hundred dollars per year. If you’re self-conscious about “working out” with weights in full view, do it at home. You can buy a basic set of dumbbells, a bench, and a barbell for about the cost of a gym membership.
To get started, work out under the watchful eye of a qualified exercise instructor who can teach you proper form and technique. Take it easy at first, without trying to lift weights that are too heavy. Overexertion is risky and can lead to injury.
A 2010 study reported in The American Journal of Sports Medicine finds nearly a million Americans wound up in emergency rooms with weight-training injuries. What’s worse is annual injuries increased more than 48 percent in that period. But the annual number of injuries in women increased faster.2
Learn as much as you can about the safety features of weight training equipment. Be sure to work out on non-consecutive days. Your muscles need at least 48 hours to rest and recover before another workout.
Be safe!
References:
1 http://www.livestrong.com/article/405275-women-weight-training/#ixzz2JW03xCWr
2 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/health/15stat.html
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