Should women strength train? Yup

[Guffe]

It shouldn't be only the women.
Guys should also train, and again, this is for both gender.
Work out, healthy lifestyles.

I can take myself as an example, as a kid I've been playing football, tennis, badminton and some other sports, and been going to the gym since 16. After I was 20, the sports dropped out due to school and work which resulted in just jogging and hitting the gym. Doing this 4-7 times a week. Also eating homemade food (which I make myself). This does not mean I don't eat at all chips, candy, ice-cream etc, or drink alcohol or the occasional cocacola/fanta/wathever. But keep a healthy balance to life.

I think everyone have their own choice when it comes to the lifestyle and how healthy you keep youself, but do I think everyone should look after themselves? Yes, absolutely, does everyone have to look like a God/Godess? No.

 

[Guffe]

you will most likely look like this.


and only if you have around 5-10% body fat.

First of:
Yes I will correct the quoted part
Second:
I don't mean to be an asshole, I just hope you learn something with very little meaning to anything

I understand with 5-10 % you mean "very little"

But based on that girls forms, I'd put her bodyfat between 15-20%
A guy who looks like that (muscles "show", big build etc) and goes to competitions, their bodyfat is ideally around 7%, a guys "normal" bodyfat is around 12-16% while for women it is 17-22%, the numbers can be a give or take 3%. The reasons are, hips and boobs, these two factors, biologically different in male and female, result in a higher bodyfat in women.

A males bodyfat gets to "critically low" when you go under 7%, and for women it is under 12%, if a woman is under 12% bodyfat there is a high healthrisk for example, when giving birth, both for the mum and the child. And achieving these levels of low in bodyfat is very hard.

 

[Pieturli]

I'd be interested in finding out when people stopped caring about strength. As far as I can tell, it was sometime in the late eighties when suddenly, everything was about cardio and getting skinny. Strength is so basic and so foundational that it seems crazy to me how neglected it is. Strength carries over into EVERYTHING. Squat goes up? You run faster, jump higher and further. Physical labor becomes easier.


As for women doing strength training? Absolutely. The idea that women get bulky and manly because of strength training has been debunked so many times and so thoroughly I'm honestly surprised anyone still thinks that will happen. The amount of muscle mass you build is dependent on testosterone production (for the most part). Women produce around a tenth of the amount of testosterone that men do. Have you seen how hard guys have to work in order to get big? They have to eat like starving polar bears and train hard for years to get big.


Even more to the point, what fairly little hypertrophy women do actually get will do nothing but good things. Muscle and bone mass, particularly as you age, are GOOD THINGS.



Lastly, if you are in need of losing bodyfat and getting into condition, long slow distance is not the way to go. I mean it works, but it is criminally inefficient and the best way there is for losing useful bodyweight. High intensity interval training is the way to go. Hill sprints, for example.

 

[Charli]

I am ladyfolk and I approve this message. Not excessive muscle gain like some are imagining, but certainly more than is done.

Women are actively discouraged from doing any kind of heavier lifting or muscle training to avoid looking bulky. And therefore not attractive.

But the truth is a little of it keeps you (me) lean and very healthy, not to mention increased in stamina and have good metabolism. I was at my happiest when I kept up that regime and I'd like to reach a point in my life where I'm less busy and exhausted all the time and get back to it.

Please take what I say with a pinch of salt, everyone has different diets and work-outs that work best for them but for me, this really did help. Aerobics and Strength training were how I was healthiest, while some women favor Yoga and food diets of all kinds of wacky stuff. That just ain't me.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

I'm really scratching my head here as to who exactly, wether it be a group or a cultural left-over, is discouraging women from excercising, most guys I talk to like a girl who can handle herself and stays in shape, going to the gym together can be a bonding experience.
I'm thinking it's the "she-hulk" paranoia a lot of women suffer from is the culprit, but that is speculation on my part, it seems like people are their own worst enemy most of the time.

CAPTCHA: it hurts
Or that, you gotta feel those calories BURN to reap the benefits!

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

I really hope they don't. The gym gets packed enough right after new year, I'd really rather not have it like that all year long.

Yes, that makes me sound like a selfish asshole, but god damn it my gym only has one power rack!

Freaking. This.

I only do arms on saturday evenings when I have no plans. Quiet, relaxed gym with about 2 machines free for each person. Its exercise as its meant to be in my opinion. A little time for me to work on me in some relative quiet. I can just zone out and do something simple and good for myself. Fuck me the rest of the week its a nightmare... theres only 3 goddam benches and at least 30 people all lining up to use them.

Im of the opinion its schools fault women are generally less strong than men (more than biological reasons anyway). We train our women to be weaker. We dont push teenage girls to work hard and train their bodies. Girls at my school never had to do a real pushup even ONCE. Guys had to do sets of push ups and sit ups every endurance day. Why would they ruin their perception of health for ever?! Its not the poor girls fault, they get shepherded and babied into thinking a light jog is what you need to hone your body. That a knees on the floor press up is the best they never should want to do. Sure the more athletic girls break out of that fairly quickly once they realise to compete in any sport they need to drop the weird mini exercises the school sets for them but for the majority they stay weaker than the dudes because the school makes us work harder than them. Sure at the time stupid teenage me said "lucky girls do such easy sets of push ups" but now i realise it primed me to be healthier into later life than they were. I was fortunate to be forced to learn to do real press ups properly and consistently.

I think its totally unfair to gimp them like that. Make young girls realise the importance of exercise, work them as hard as they work the guys. They can handle it and we will have a generation of fitter, healthier and stronger daughters to show for it. Theres no valid reason to prevent the girls becoming strong.

 

[verdant monkai]

I probably am the cultural factor you are on about, but I'm not attracted to muscular women. That being said I'm also not a fan of really skinny women and definitely not fat women. I think most guys are the same, they'd like a girl somewhere in the middle, basically a girl who looks healthy. But not someone who could bench press them, some guys are into that but not most.

You could go down the path of not caring what men want and get fat or muscular, and have difficulty finding a guy. Or you could hit the gym once or twice a week, just to keep the weight off and stay fit.

It's just finding that balance.

 

[Pieturli]

I am ladyfolk and I approve this message. Not excessive muscle gain like some are imagining, but certainly more than is done.

Women are actively discouraged from doing any kind of heavier lifting or muscle training to avoid looking bulky. And therefore not attractive.

But the truth is a little of it keeps you (me) lean and very healthy, not to mention increased in stamina and have good metabolism. I was at my happiest when I kept up that regime and I'd like to reach a point in my life where I'm less busy and exhausted all the time and get back to it.

Please take what I say with a pinch of salt, everyone has different diets and work-outs that work best for them but for me, this really did help. Aerobics and Strength training were how I was healthiest, while some women favor Yoga and food diets of all kinds of wacky stuff. That just ain't me.

Good to see women here that aren't afraid of this stuff. Props to you!


I'd like to see less people telling people what to do with their bodies. I'd like to see more people giving other people good reasons to train. For me, the motivator has always been performance and health, not appearance. Although, well, I'd be lying if I claimed I don't care about the effect of lifting on my appearance, but I've never operated my training from the point of view of what it does to the way I look.


Lifting is healthy both mentally and physically, and it could be said that this is even more true for women than men. Women have a quadruple risk of osteoporosis compared to men, and lifting is the most effective way of strengthening your bones.


There are a handful of competitive female olympic weightlifters at my gym, and they are damn good at it too. Not one of them looks manly or bulky, they are beautiful as all hell and they look like fit, healthy and capable human beings.


Finnish weightlifter Anna Everi: http://www.urheilija.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/AnnaEveri.jpg


Seriously girls, don't be afraid to lift.

 

[briankoontz]

It's more than a little curious when people speak about weight training as if it's something to be proud of. It's physical activity for no positive purpose in and of itself, and for reason which typically amounts to vanity ("looking good").

Only for people whose alternative is an irrelevant existence without lifting weights ought to prefer an irrelevant existence with lifting weights, but such people should become a lot more ambitious about their lives than looking to the gym.

As for "self esteem" - vain people always have high self esteem - they think very highly of themselves. Only twisted cultures celebrate such a thing.

Of the hundreds of people I most admire and look up to, not a single one has probably ever lifted weights. It's completely unnecessary.

 

[Jarsh82]

I probably am the cultural factor you are on about, but I'm not attracted to muscular women. That being said I'm also not a fan of really skinny women and definitely not fat women. I think most guys are the same, they'd like a girl somewhere in the middle, basically a girl who looks healthy. But not someone who could bench press them, some guys are into that but not most.

You could go down the path of not caring what men want and get fat or muscular, and have difficulty finding a guy. Or you could hit the gym once or twice a week, just to keep the weight off and stay fit.

It's just finding that balance.

Keeping the weight off is not the same thing as staying fit. Strength is at least as important as cardiovascular health. I would even say that it should be the foundation that cardiovascular health is built on. A woman who strength trains in not likely to get bulky and she certainly won't get bulky on accident. Its important to understand the hypertrophy is not directly correlated with strength though there is some carry over. Strength is as much a product of the central nervous system as it is muscle mass. A good portion of the girls at my gym are in the 130 or 140 pound range on the bunch press and none of them are bulky. I would say squatting does wonderful things for the female figure. A woman with a strong posterior chain looks a hell of a lot sexier than a woman who only does cardio (if I'm being shallow).

 

[Phasmal]

I probably am the cultural factor you are on about, but I'm not attracted to muscular women. That being said I'm also not a fan of really skinny women and definitely not fat women. I think most guys are the same, they'd like a girl somewhere in the middle, basically a girl who looks healthy. But not someone who could bench press them, some guys are into that but not most.

You could go down the path of not caring what men want and get fat or muscular, and have difficulty finding a guy. Or you could hit the gym once or twice a week, just to keep the weight off and stay fit.

It's just finding that balance.

I already got a guy- BEAT THE SYSTEM.
I kid, I kid. (But seriously if a lady wants to be muscled why would she care what a guy who didnt like muscular women thought? Anyway...)

You'd have to work quite hard to have noticably big muscles as a woman.
I dunno where this idea that if a lady goes weight lifting she's gonna have Hulk arms and scare away the peens.

I'd love to become stronger in the arm department. I have fairly strong legs but I have terribly weak arms, I can't even do a push-up. Maybe I should get some weights. Gym's not really an option around here.
Lift ALL THE THINGS!

 

[IronSkape]

It's more than a little curious when people speak about weight training as if it's something to be proud of. It's physical activity for no positive purpose in and of itself, and for reason which typically amounts to vanity ("looking good").

Only for people whose alternative is an irrelevant existence without lifting weights ought to prefer an irrelevant existence with lifting weights, but such people should become a lot more ambitious about their lives than looking to the gym.

As for "self esteem" - vain people always have high self esteem - they think very highly of themselves. Only twisted cultures celebrate such a thing.

Of the hundreds of people I most admire and look up to, not a single one has probably ever lifted weights. It's completely unnecessary.

I would definitely disagree with this. Strength training is an extremely valuable, life-enhancing activity that has far-reaching benefits outside of appearance.

I've been a personal trainer for two years, and my clientele consists mostly of ...well, broken people. People in the gym for health reasons, with physical appearance being an afterthought. I have a guy who, after dropping some bodyweight and building up his legs, can climb towers at work with much less pain and effort than he could have before. I have an 82 year old woman who can deadlift a 50lb kettlebell for reps, and not surprisingly she lives very independently. I'm training a stroke survivor to extend his elbow again. All of these people would be worse off if it wasn't for lifting.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to look good, but I would definitely argue that it's one of the less important benefits of a well-rounded strength program.


Sorry, that's a little off-topic! I can just say that I train my women exactly how I train my men: they deadlift (when appropriate), they squat, they get good at pushups and pullups, and they're making much faster and meaningful progress than the women who latch onto the elliptical and are afraid to let go.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Honestly in the past I've done some strength training back when I was in Army cadets to help with team building exercises but these days I'm more or less fine with using my personal treadmill and eating less junk foods, more healthier foods and drinking water.

With that said I also tend to prefer women who are either somewhat average or slim, not really into muscles on guys or women (Arnold is my only exception), just not me preference in taste.

 

[Pieturli]

http://startingstrength.com/index.php/site/article/the_women_of_strength_at_ccsc#.Uwo4zPl_uJ0


Here's an excellent article written from the perspective of a LADYGIRL.

 

[verdant monkai]

I already got a guy- BEAT THE SYSTEM.
I kid, I kid. (But seriously if a lady wants to be muscled why would she care what a guy who didnt like muscular women thought? Anyway...)

You'd have to work quite hard to have noticably big muscles as a woman.
I dunno where this idea that if a lady goes weight lifting she's gonna have Hulk arms and scare away the peens.

I'd love to become stronger in the arm department. I have fairly strong legs but I have terribly weak arms, I can't even do a push-up. Maybe I should get some weights. Gym's not really an option around here.
Lift ALL THE THINGS!

I see.

Attaining huge status is hard for anyone (believe me I know), I think you just made up the myth that women instantly get huge from the gym. As everyone I talk to in my gym says it takes ages and hard work.

But as I said if you want to go down the muscular route then that fine, but if you do end up with Hulk arms most guys won't think its a good look. I won't pretend to know how muscular you are but you probably aren't built like a brick shit house.

Anyway thats just an opinion held by me and most of the guys I know.

Speedwagon withdraws coolly.

 

[Phasmal]

I see.

Attaining huge status is hard for anyone (believe me I know), I think you just made up the myth that women instantly get huge from the gym. As everyone I talk to in my gym says it takes ages and hard work.

But as I said if you want to go down the muscular route then that fine, but if you do end up with Hulk arms most guys won't think its a good look. I won't pretend to know how muscular you are but you probably aren't built like a brick shit house.

Anyway thats just an opinion held by me and most of the guys I know.

My point WAS that being huge is hard work.
Speaking to other ladies as to why they DON'T lift weights, the reason I always get is `I don't want to look all huge and disgusting`, as if that's gonna happen the second you pick up a dumbell.

I don't lift weights at all (hence the part of my quote saying I can't even do a push-up), but I'd like to have more strength.
I think that's overall a good thing.

I'm not saying you can't not like muslcey women, I'm just saying it's not going to be a factor in the majority of women who lift weights.