Strength training or cardio for women

Geschatte leestijd: 3 minutenA common remark from women regarding the topic of strength training is that they don’t want to look “too broad” or “too muscular.” This is a major misconception because strength training for women can actually contribute to a beautiful and sexy appearance. In this article, we explain how strength training for women can help with weight loss and achieving a more attractive figure.

Strength Training or Cardio

In the gym, you often see a division between men and women engaging in different forms of activity. Women typically participate in group classes and spend a lot of time on the treadmill, bike, elliptical, or step machine. Men are often found in the weight room and occasionally do some cardio. It’s not to say that this is wrong, but this division is often seen in many gyms.

In the fitness world, there is currently a revolution among women who are spending more time in the weight room than before. This is partly due to the realization that strength training will not lead to the physique of a female bodybuilder. Additionally, strength training can be a more effective method for weight loss than cardio training. By developing more muscles that require more energy, strength training is ideal for shedding extra fat.

Strength Training for Women

To alleviate the fear for many women reading this: you won’t become a bodybuilder when you start strength training. The reason for this is that the female body is not naturally capable of that. To become a bodybuilder, you would need more of the hormone testosterone than your body naturally produces. This is what many female bodybuilders apply through external means. So rest assured, even if you go to the gym 7 times a week, you won’t become a bodybuilder.

What will happen when you, as a woman, start strength training is that your fat-free muscle mass will increase. By training with heavy weights, your muscles grow (but not so much that you’ll immediately look like a bodybuilder). Muscle tissue is active tissue and even uses energy at rest. Additionally, the hormones your body produces during strength training also increase insulin sensitivity, preventing sugars from being stored as fat reserves. Finally, the muscles you build give your body more shape.

So the benefits of strength training for women:

• A higher resting metabolism, because muscles consume more energy, even at rest
• Being active burns calories and creates a negative energy balance
• Muscles shape your legs, buttocks, abdomen, and arms to give you a feminine and sexy form

Getting Started with Strength Training

If you are convinced of the above and want to start strength training now, it is important to start simple and easy. Heavy training doesn’t mean you have to immediately start working with extremely heavy weights. A good guideline is to train with a weight that allows you to perform an exercise in a controlled and correct manner just 10 times. Do this for 4 sets. When you get stronger and the 10 repetitions become easy for you, then increase the weight.

Strength Training Schedule for Women

To guide you in the right direction, we have compiled a schedule for training your entire body in 3 days. This allows you to determine which days you would like to train. If you miss a day, you can simply continue with the next training where you left off. We have assumed 4 sets here, where the 1st set consists of a warm-up set. You should then be able to perform between 10 and 15 repetitions for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sets without compromising on execution.