Not Just a Man's World

I’m a woman and I do weight training.

For many people the statement above is an oddity.  Why should I want to train at weights if I’m a woman?  Tony Gentilcore put it perfectly when he summarised the fact that people frequently question why a woman is choosing to do any weight training whereas nobody ever questions why a man chooses to go to the gym and lift weights.

Training at home I can do whatever exercises I like and nobody asks me why I train

Women may have all the same sorts of reasons for training as men.  The important thing is to know why it is that you, personally, train.

I’ve written before about why women start weight training, but decided that it was well worth revisting the topic with some extra information of things women should be thinking about when they start training. 

Here are a couple of reasons why I, and many other women, choose to do weight training.

Increasing bone density

I originally started weight training because I knew that I wanted to continue doing lots of highly active things into old age.  I didn’t want the risk of taking a minor fall and being so fragile that I’d break half the bones in my body and be laid up for months recovering.  Women, after all, tend to be prone to osteoporosis.

A bit of judicious research revealed that I need to do load-bearing exercise to improve my bone density and weight training was the most effective exercise for this.  I’ve done a blog-watch about bone density research before so I won’t repeat it here.  Needless to say, I was sold on weight training and started the same week.

To prove my point, I came off my bike the next weekend and fractured both elbows.  If I ever have a bad day in the gym I just have to think “elbows” to remember that, even if I didn’t improve, the fact that I went into the gym and did anything at all will help me with the real reason I started weight training.

Improving my figure

Did you know that the half-starved waif look was out and that a study showed that men prefer curvier women?  Well the truth is that I would like legs like Cameron Diaz and you can’t have “toned” legs (and the rest of the body) without having a bit of muscle underneath the skin.

I still remember my partner, Chris, starting to teach me how to do my workouts.  I’d like to think that I wasn’t as bad as the comedy routine that Tony Gentilcore once wrote about, but I’m sure there have been moments when Chris couldn’t have said anything that I wouldn’t misinterpret.  Starting to train with weights was taking me out of my safety net and removed security barriers.  Suddenly I felt exposed.  I became aware of my weaknesses and went from a being a woman who wasn’t bothered about her figure to one who was hyper-sensitive about the muscles I was still lacking.

Having started out believing that training with weights would give me big and bulky muscles, but prepared to take the risk because of the bone density benefits, I quickly learned that it takes a lot of effort to build noticeable muscle and that lifting a few weights wasn’t going to turn me into a human blackberry overnight.  In fact, with a few years under my belt I’m only just finding that my old clothes no longer fit me properly.

Things to think about as a woman

There are a few women-specific weight training things I tend to have to remember when I’m discussing any new training program with Chris (who acts as my sounding board and sometime-program creator).

• To get the ideal hourglass figure you need to increase the size of the glutes and the chest/shoulders.  Plenty of glute-specific work (hip thrusts and glute bridges) feature in my program.  Here’s Mike Boyle talking a bit about getting a better butt as a woman:

How To Get Your Best Butt! Episode #19 from valerie waters on Vimeo.

• You have a menstrual cycle so you need to learn to work with it, rather than working against it and wishing you didn’t have one.  I’ve written about periodisation of my weight training round my menstrual cycle before as well as how the contraceptive pill (and how the “cycle” from that occurs) can affect strength performance.  It’s also worth remembering that it doesn’t only affect resistance training.  A science paper was written earlier this year on the effect of the menstrual cycle on exercise metabolism – specifically endurance exercise.
• Women often have smaller hands which can make it harder to hold onto fatter bars.  I’m not saying that this is a bad thing.  In fact, building up sufficient grip strength to deal with this issue may be a major boon later on and ultimately you will need to build up the necessary grip strength.  However, you may need to find short term solutions to assist you.  I was fascinated to read Eric Cressey singing the praises of the Lynx Grip – these look like they could be a major benefit to small-handed women in helping them to continue to build strength elsewhere while they are still developing the grip strength needed to hold onto the bar.

Those few points aside, it’s worth remembering that weight training doesn’t have to make you that different to other women (other than the superb figure and the wonderful health benefits and… you get the idea).  For a bit of fun, try reading Jim Bryan’s take on dispelling the myths surrounding women who do weight training.

Hopefully that’s inspired a few people and has also given a few others ammunition to convince their friends to start weight training.  If you ever need some extra inspiration try subscribing to the RSS feed for Powerlifting Watch.  While it covers both male and female successes, some of the female lifts that get posted on the site are totally awesome and give me a craving to get back in the gym and train a bit harder!

Related posts:

1. Why do women start weight training?
2. Blog-watch: optimal female training
3. Women’s strengths
4. Women can do pull ups too