Should women strength train? Yup
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Speaking as a male I really see no problem with women doing strength training, its part of a regular fitness routine if you ask me. I think most of the stigma is due to these female body builders who take male hormones and get a little.....off looking. I've met/been friends with women who strength train regularly and they look normal as any other girl, they are just have more upper body strength then 95% of other female...and a good chunk of males too.
I think exercise and staying active is something everyone should take the time to do, not just women. While I think some people would probably benefit greatly by adding it to their regimen, some people physically can't nor do I think it's the only way to exercise. I do strength exercises after my 'cardio' workouts. I do kickboxing style cardio and that sort of thing. I don't do treadmills, but I do have a stationary magnetic resistance bike - which I like.
However, I'm currently 6 months pregnant so I get to do fancy modified exercises (no jumping, nothing too intense, etc) but I still exercise to keep from gaining too much. I mean, I don't want to be one of those ladies who gains 60-100lbs and then blames the kid for the rest of their life. I know a woman whose kids are grown and out of the house and she still blames the pregnancies for her being at least 200lbs overweight. Come on now, it's been 20 years plus. Unfortunately, I was about 20-25lbs from my long term goal of losing 100lbs when I found out I was pregnant, but I plan on getting back there as soon as I am cleared for exercise afterwords.
However, I'm currently 6 months pregnant so I get to do fancy modified exercises (no jumping, nothing too intense, etc) but I still exercise to keep from gaining too much. I mean, I don't want to be one of those ladies who gains 60-100lbs and then blames the kid for the rest of their life. I know a woman whose kids are grown and out of the house and she still blames the pregnancies for her being at least 200lbs overweight. Come on now, it's been 20 years plus. Unfortunately, I was about 20-25lbs from my long term goal of losing 100lbs when I found out I was pregnant, but I plan on getting back there as soon as I am cleared for exercise afterwords.
Of course most Americans should strength train. The issue is that by a larger percentage women concentrate on cardio while neglecting strength training because strength training is viewed as masculine which is why I mentioned them specifically.Johnny Novgorod said:
Proper mobility work is a very important part of any strength program. Olympic lifters have excellent mobility and lack of mobility can hinder strength gains. An example would be you need good hip flexor and ankle mobility to perform a good high bar squat to depth. You need good wrist flexibility to have a good rack position for the front squat and clean and you need good shoulder flexibility to snatch. Inflexibility isn't the result of strength training but poor or non existent programming. I would also like to say that the idea that women will get bulky from strength training is a personal pet peeve of mine. Most women lack the physiology to bulk up like a man. If you go to a gym what percentage of men do you see that look like bodybuilders. Not many. How many of those guys are trying to bulk up. A fair portion of them. Bulking up is hard to do and a woman who is at a physiological disadvantage for bulking up certainly isn't going to do so on accident simply from strength training. The huge women body builders that you see are on an incredibly disciplined diet and workout regiment in addition using steroids and testosterone. There is simply no other way for a woman to achieve this. I would also like to point out the different between bodybuilding (bulking) and strength training. This is a huge misconception. Getting stronger doesn't necessarily mean getting bigger and getting bigger doesn't necessarily mean getting stronger.SimpleThunda said:
Speaking as a women who lifts 30kgs bags of Horse crap and rakes all day for a living, my arms wont budge a fucking inch! i have couch bound friends who are more buff than me. 
Strength training has also been demonstrated to improve mobility. Guys that have no flexibility are in a weight class where nobody is flexible.
Weightlifting shrinks you, eating more makes you bigger. Depending on your AAs it might not even be possible to get big muscles outside your legs and butt anymore.
chinangel said:
Weightlifting shrinks you, eating more makes you bigger. Depending on your AAs it might not even be possible to get big muscles outside your legs and butt anymore.
I don't believe that pure cardio and proper nutrition on their own are just as good as strength training. Obviously proper nutrition is foundational to good health and cardio is great but cardio with out strength training to supplement it is problematic. Cardio doesn't help prevent injuries and while it can lower your current blood sugar it doesn't have the same effect on insulin sensitivity as having a healthy amount of muscle mass has. It also won't be as effective at improving and maintaining bone density which should be a huge concern for women. If you have a strength deficit, as most people do, them you simply aren't as healthy as if you had a healthy muscle mass. At any given time 80% of the running population (those who run as a part of there life style) is dealing with some sort of injury. This is in large part due to a lack of proper strength training in much of the population.Riot3000 said:
Growth comes from eating, not lifting, lifting just tells your body to grow more muscle and less fat.sweetylnumb said:Speaking as a women who lifts 30kgs bags of Horse crap and rakes all day for a living, my arms wont budge a fucking inch! i have couch bound friends who are more buff than me.
Well, i am also 56 kgs so i guess you might have a point there.Requia said:Growth comes from eating, not lifting, lifting just tells your body to grow more muscle and less fat.sweetylnumb said:Speaking as a women who lifts 30kgs bags of Horse crap and rakes all day for a living, my arms wont budge a fucking inch! i have couch bound friends who are more buff than me.
I fully agree that most people shouldn't exclusively strength train as cardiovascular health is also very important but I have almost exclusivity strength trained for almost 6 months now and am the most flexible I have ever been. If you train correctly you never only train a muscle in two directions you build stabilisers and use auxiliary exercises. Women will not get bulky strength training unless that is their particular goal it is very easy to stall muscle growth especially in women. I find it kind of annoying that people think that if a guy/girl trains with weights they will instantly start to pack on muscle this is a myth.SimpleThunda said:
I would argue the opposite and I always encourage people to stop using the treadmill. Its a giant waste of time and mind numbingly boring. If some one genuinely enjoyed the treadmill I wouldn't say anything but I've never met this person. Most people hate the treadmill that's why they don't stick with it. Its also a terrible return on your time investment. You can burn a lot more calories in much less time and have a lot more fun doing something else. Cardiovascular endurance is fairly easily gotten and just as easy to lose. If a girl is a cardio bunny during her early twenties but then quits she probably won't have much to show for it in her thirties. If she was on a goal oriented strength program during her twenties as quits she will still likely see benefits from that in her thirties.
I need to preface this with I get read constantly as a woman regardless of me being genderfluid and not identifying as female or male most of the time. I identify mostly androgynous yet because of society I still have to be labelled a "woman" for bathrooms and changing rooms and stuff. Now that that is out of the way.....Jarsh82 said:
I don't know that intimidated is the right word for me. But setting foot inside a gym around here you basically get people who, if I were as thin as them I would quite literally have to have an eating disorder to be that thin, complain that they are "like soooooo fat". Mind you, these women look like a size 2 or 4 at the largest. We are talking very thin women. I hear that I feel like a whale(also I can't tell you my size as I stopped shopping in the women's section about 10 years ago but my waist size is between a 36-40 in waist in men's jeans depends on the time of the month). Not only that but around here if you don't look like them, you get mercilessly mocked for your weight/size. Especially if your BMI says you're overweight. No matter how much actual muscle mass you have (cause y'know BMI doesn't take into account muscle so I've been overweight since I was 16 and I looked like I had an eating disorder then but it was just high metabolism). And the mocking is from the gym employees as well. Not to mention that if you are read as a woman it feels like a gorram meat market. And dear lord the sexist shit you get. I USE to lift weights. Don't anymore. Tired of men coming up and calling me a little girl and telling me that I should be doing something more productive like running in place or stairmaster and leave the weights to the "real men". Half the staff at gyms doesn't care this happens. So yeah. I am very much not impressed with gyms out here. And absolutely refuse to set foot in one again.
Also, gym memberships out here are fucking expensive. Especially when half the city is hiring just not hiring anyone who lives in the damn city (my actual city is not what is listed in my profile on here). Not to mention getting my own weights is also fucking expensive. The cheapest I've ever seen a low weight set of weights(I'm talking free weights not dumbells or anything cause I won't even get into the depressing amounts those wind up being) is about $50. And it's not worth it to me.
That said, I do kind of do my own version of strength training. I'm in a constant state of re-doing my room layout and wind up repeatedly picking up heavy shit and putting it down again and again. So my body will just have to deal with that. And I just came off 6 days of helping my best friend move her shit last weekend. Body still hasn't recovered from that so I'm taking it exceptionally easy right now. But that's more a personal thing that I know what's going on with my body and don't have the money to fix yet. But I do cardio and strength...well what I can do. Everything has to be heavily modified due to asthma and back and knee problems from prior injuries which isn't fun at all.
If you want your muscles to grow a bit you could focus on eating more proteins. What I've been doing the past three months is trying to get at least 30 grams of protein after every work out session and my muscles are starting to pop up quite nicely. Usually I'll eat three eggs or a can of tuna along with a glass of milk. Afaik it's very important getting it into your body within 20 minutes of working out or it won't do any good. I'm not sure how you could work that into a full working day, but getting more proteins for lunch should certainly help.sweetylnumb said:Well, i am also 56 kgs so i guess you might have a point there.Requia said:Growth comes from eating, not lifting, lifting just tells your body to grow more muscle and less fat.sweetylnumb said:Speaking as a women who lifts 30kgs bags of Horse crap and rakes all day for a living, my arms wont budge a fucking inch! i have couch bound friends who are more buff than me.
I usually don't respond to other posts, but dont you think you are being needlessly offensive here? Not everyone who doesn't go to the gym is lazy or spoiled. Some of use just really don't enjoy their time there, and a balance of healthy diet and plenty of movement can allow you to be perfectly healhy without the gym.SimpleThunda said:
I personally feel that everyone should get a university degree, but I understand that it's not for everyone. I don't go around calling those who don't study lazy or stupid though..