Why Should Women Lift Weights – Part 2

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Last week’s blog discussed the many benefits of lifting weights for women. To recap they are:

  1. To lose body fat
  2. To build strength
  3. To reduce your risk of osteoporosis
  4. To improve athletic performance
  5. To reduce your risk of back pain and pain from osteoarthritis
  6. To reduce your risk of heart disease
  7. To reduce your risk of diabetes
  8. To improve your mood

Lifting weights isn’t the only way to work against resistance so below is a list of different types of resistance training and which ones are better for building mass (hypertrophy), strength or power.

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Once you have decided on what type of resistance work you would like to do the next question is, how often should you train per week?

1x/week – significantly less growth than 2x/week

2x/week – maximized growth

3x/week – no statistical difference compared to 2x/week

(Schoenfeld et al, 2016)

So now you are wondering how many reps and how many sets?

8 reps per muscle group, 3-4 sets per exercise produced the greatest strength gains (Peterson et al, 2004)

Finally, how do you progress safely?

An increased load of 5-10% per week resulted in less than 10% risk of injury.

A greater than 15% increase per week resulted in an injury risk between 21% and 64%

(Gobbett, BJSM, 2016)

Now that you know the importance of strength/resistance training and how to do it safely, just go out there and do it. For all of you, who just want to play your sports, strength training will make you better at it. For all you golfers out there, golf season is coming up – stay tuned for golf specific training next week.

Andre Gordon