If you’re someone who works out, it’s likely that you prefer certain forms of exercise over others.
Cardio, yoga, weightlifting or anything else you might find are all great ways to work out and keep your body active.
However, it seems it’s most popular for women to do workouts that fall into cardio or yoga categories.
Whereas it seems much less common for women to engage in strength training workouts.
If this is the case, I would like to introduce more women to the world of weightlifting.
There are so many benefits of weightlifting for women, I really believe you should give it a try.
I started weightlifting about two years ago and the changes I’ve noticed since then are insane.
I’ve seen more improvements from weightlifting than I have from any other forms of workouts. I also truly enjoy it and it has become a passion of mine.
In this post, I’m going to cover the not talked about reasons why weightlifting has the potential to become your new favorite form of exercise.
Let’s get into it.
Why it’s important to find exercise you enjoy
No matter what type of exercises you pick, the most important thing is that you find something that you enjoy.
This is because the key to staying committed to a routine is to find exercises that you genuinely enjoy doing. If you do this, you will for sure fall in love with working out everyday.
Working out isn’t meant to be something you have to force yourself to do.
It’s supposed to be something that adds quality to your life. Bringing you joy, improving your health, and relaxing you.
If you find a form of exercise you enjoy, you’ll begin to look forward to working out everyday. It’ll be something that makes you feel good and makes you happy. Not something you dread.
Why weightlifting can be such an enjoyable exercise
I think there are a lot of reasons why weightlifting has the potential to be an exercise enjoyed by so many women.
Here are all of the things I find most enjoyable about weightlifting and that I’d think most other women would find enjoyable, too.
1. It doesn’t require as much heavy breathing as cardio
One of the main reasons I like weightlifting is because it doesn’t put as much stress on my lungs as cardio does.
If you’re someone who hates the feeling of being out of breath and feeling like you can’t breath when you’re doing cardio, then weightlifting is the perfect alternative for you.
I find that with weightlifting, it’s much easier to just target and isolate your muscles. Rather than forcing your whole body to work together and supply yourself with oxygen.
Weightlifting allows you to push hard and lift heavy with each set, but also get a rest period when your set is over.
2. It has a much better effect on body composition
If you’re trying to body recomp, then the key to doing this is to put on muscle.
If you want to completely transform your body, it’s essential that you start lifting weights and gaining muscle.
Yes, losing fat and weight can transform your body. However, no matter how much fat you loose, your body will still have the same shape underneath.
However, if you want to completely change the shape of your body, you need to start building muscle.
I understand that not all women want to look muscular. But still, I find it surprising that women have the opportunity to lift weights and choose not to.
Weightlifting has the power to completely change your body to the shape you want it.
It has the power to make you look much healthier and more athletic.
3. You feel great after completing a workout
The one great thing about lifting heavy is it takes up all your focus. You’ll be so focused on pushing the weight that you forget about everything else that’s on your mine.
This makes the gym a great space to go and clear your head. Since all there is to think about is the weight you’re lifting.
Intense exercise like this is actually an extremely healthy way to release negative emotions. And, since you’ll be lifting multiple times a week, this gives you a nice, consistent outlet from any negative thoughts.
By the time you leave the gym, you end up feeling much better and much more accomplished than ever before.
Your entire body will feel refreshed, you’ll have much more confidence, and renewed mental clarity.
4. Your gym becomes a community of like minded people
One of the best things about lifting in a gym is being able to meet some great people.
Everyone is there to put on some muscle and better themselves. Because of this, people appreciate and relate to your determination. Most of them will want to see you winning.
When these people seeing you working hard, you’ll likely start getting compliments while you’re working out.
Compliments on things that have nothing to do with the way you look.
Whether it be someone telling you that you’re strong, or that you have insane work ethic, or even something as simple as a nod or a thumbs up.
People at the gym love to be supportive of each other and it’s truly inspiring and encouraging on a fitness journey.
5. You don’t need to workout everyday to see results
With cardio, you only see results depending on how much time you spend working out. each day
However, with weightlifting, there’s only a certain amount of times a week you can workout.
If you’re lifting weights and trying to build muscle, one thing your body needs is REST.
Because muscle grows when it recovers, with weightlifting, your body needs a lot of rest for you to see progress.
This is great if you don’t want to work out everyday or don’t have the time to.
You should really only be working each muscle group two times per week to make the most progress.
This allows your muscles to have adequate rest in between workouts. Time to recover and grow.
With this information, you can plan your gym split around whatever schedule works for you.
Decide how many days you’re able to go to the gym, then decide which combination of muscle groups you want to work each day.
If you’re training intensely enough the days that you’re there, you’re muscles will need a lot of time off to recover.
6. The feeling of being sore after a workout is GREAT
To begin, if you’re someone who doesn’t get sore, then you might want to look into why you aren’t sore after your workouts.
However, if you are someone who gets sore, then you know this is one of the best parts of working out.
Being sore in the days following your workouts is amazing. First off, it gives you more time to rest, since you can’t workout when you’re sore.
But more importantly, it makes you feel so accomplished and let’s you know how hard you’re working.
Knowing that you’re doing things right and working hard is an amazing feeling.
It really helps keep you encouraged and motivates you to work out.
7. You’ll continue seeing more benefits as you put on more muscle
As you put on more and more muscle, you’ll start noticing more benefits.
For example, having more muscle allows you to burn more calories than having less muscle does.
This is because muscle burns more calories than fat. Therefore having more muscle on your body will cause your body to burn more calories overall.
Making it easier to transform your body as time goes on.
As a result, you can burn more calories and lose more fat, simply by having a higher muscle percentage.
I like to think of weightlifting as more of an investment exercise.
Cardo allows you to burn more calories during the exercise, but stop burning them afterwards.
Whereas weightlifting allows you to burn less calories during the workout, but continue to burn more and more calories afterwards.
What you can do now
If I’ve persuaded you by this point to give weightlifting a try, that’s great!
You’re one step closer to getting into a routine and reaping all the benefits weightlifting has to offer.
For most people, the hardest part is just getting started. The gym can seem scary and intimidating, but really, it’s not.
Especially if you’re a nervous person, you’ll likely want to find tips on how to decrease gym anxiety.
Once you do that, you’ll want to make a workout routine so you can go to the gym with a plan.
With time and consistency, you’ll most likely fall in love with the results. And with that, you’ll learn to love the process! and the process.
Some more posts on women’s weightlifting:
Why rest days are so important for women who weight train
The key to growing muscle, three rules I live by to grow muscle in the gym
How to overcome a weightlifting plateau
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