Do You Even Lift, Ladies?! Why Women SHOULD Lift Weights

What's up Gronk Fitness!

Sometimes I think the word "muscle" is one of the most feared words in the female vocabulary! You can't even get the full question out of your mouth without being interrupted by "well I don't want to get bulky". Ladies stop buying into this concept that lifting weights creates bulky muscle! What we’re talking about is building athletic bodies packed with lean muscle, because if you haven’t noticed athletic bodies are IN & it’s time to build YOURS!

The first thing you have to remember is that your body will only change so much through weight training, meaning that you are not going to all of the sudden change into a female bodybuilder if you pick up a weight. It WON'T happen and it can’t happen. By picking up weights you will simply start sculpting a leaner, stronger version of your current body. When you hear the word “muscle” instead of thinking about bulky bodybuilders, think about it as adding shape to the areas you would like to have shape in, for example, rounder shoulders or fuller glutes. Also, as a result of building lean muscle, not only will you get stronger and faster you will get rid of fat in the places that you don’t want it, like your waist and arms!

Take me for example, I played sports my whole life and when I did I had a strong shapely athletic body. The minute I stopped playing sports, I stopped training because I was depressed that I was no longer an athlete and I lost all of my muscle. I had always been naturally a “skinny” girl, so when I stopped training my body went right back to that look because I no longer had that shape in my muscles. But when I got back to training like an athlete with the right combination of weights and cardio, I was able to quickly build back my athletic look, strength & confidence. 

When I started training again, I had forgotten about how strong I felt when I challenged myself physically. How the strength that I built in the gym translated into my daily life, not only did it get my body get stronger but my mind as well. This is one of the things that often gets overlooked when it comes to the benefits of training, it’s as much for your mind as it is for your body!

There are so many reasons to start lifting & building your athletic body, here are 6 tips on getting started:

1. Start by envisioning the athletic body that you want to build in your mind, think about where you want to add shape and strength to and where you want to take away from.
2. Pick the number of days that you WILL actually train on in a week and won’t miss. Be honest with yourself, if it’s one day it’s one day if it’s five its five. But the idea being that you will not miss these training days, you want this to be a goal that you can hit. Staying consistent with these training days will help keep you on track in the long run.
3. Choose the times that you will train on those days, make sure you take this seriously. Think of this as an appointment with yourself that you cannot miss.
4. When you lift choose compound movements that work several muscles at once.
5. When you perform your cardio stay away from steady-state cardio and choose things like intervals, circuits or sled work.
6. When you show up on those days to train make sure you’ve got your mind in the right place to build your athletic body!
   
   

Train hard, make power moves. - Callie Bundy