The Thai crunch salad I had been craving for weeks from California Pizza Kitchen was just as ethereal as my taste buds remembered. Despite being super soaked by some good old Seattle rain, welcome back rain, lunch with my sistah from anotha motha was awesome. Since she had been traveling from Greece to Jerusalem and even London, it was great to catch up but she gave me a perspective and insight into something that would keep me thinking all day!
In the movie “What Women Want” Mel Gibson receives the magical gift of being able to hear what women are thinking. He benefits tremendously with this from his love life, to family relationships, and work as a marketing guru. This gift is bestowed upon him after a freak accident trying some bath oils, a hair dryer, some fish net panty hoes, and a new brand lipstick. I would love this gift and if all I had to do was try on some lipstick and panty hoes to get it I would, but falling in a full bath tub with an operating hair dryer is definitely not cool with me.
The topic of women and working out is always an interesting subject for me because for one, I’m a guy and don’t know jack shit about the women psyche, two, there is a pre conceived notion that guys lift weights and women do cardio that I hate, and lastly the fact that women can benefit so much from a Performance Program. So when she started talking about this, you better believe I shut up and listened.
Below are 5 main points that derived from the conversation.
1.) Bulk vs. Sculpt
It’s nearly 90% of all the women I train that adamantly express their fear of bulking from strength training in our first consultation meeting. (Now they would laugh if they could hear themselves when they started) We really need to destroy this stereotype and urban myth that lifting weights will automatically make you BUFF! (By the way we use words like jacked, yoked, and cock diesel now) What I do hear is the word “tone” thrown around like a baby with a stinky diaper.
Dara Torres, 41 years old
There is a huge misconception in this word because it doesn’t really portray what strength training does. You can’t really “tone” the body.
What you can do is sculpt. You can sculpt muscles to make them look the way you want and with lean muscle mass on your body, the less fat you will have. Here’s the catch, if you don’t have any muscles to tone, such as in the case of a woman not strength training, then there really isn’t muscle to sculpt. So, let’s put on some lean muscle so we can start sculpting or “toning” if you like.
2.) Cardio Brainwashed
I want to make this clear before I continue with this topic. I am in no way telling you to abandon your favorite exercise. If you love to run, run your little heart out. If you love to bike, well then get those legs pedaling. But if you are trying to lose weight, melt fat off your body, and get results, I urge you to ditch the machines as your main source of training.
In college I worked at the school’s gym and did time both in the weight room and cardio floor. Stereotypically the weight room was a shark tank, overflowing with stinky testosterone and the cardio floor
was a sea of women accompanied by the deafening monotone buzz of cardio machines. The sound still triggers goosebumps on my arm. Ladies, please, I’m begging you, don’t be the stereotypical working out female and spend hours on an elyptical machine
The cardio machine has many downfalls. I will just bullet them to make it easy and keep myself from getting carried away.
- Reduces total muscle expenditure
- Almost all have handles that many depend on
- Deactivates stabilizing and balancing muscles that are vital to everyday
- Is fixed in a repetitive motion scheme which creates muscle imbalances
With a cardio focused training program you train your body to progressively become more efficient at the given exercise. When your body adapts, it naturally wants to perform the movement with the least amount of energy used, hence efficiency. This is definitely not ideal for an individual seeking fat loss.
Your program should continually become harder which forces your body to adapt time and time again. The repetitive movements effect how much your entire body gets involved.
The treadmill is a moving belt that deactivates the hamstring and glute (butt) which would actually be pulling and pushing you through the movement when running naturally. Instead the belt takes the place of these muscles resulting in a quad (thigh) movement. So you sit there for an hour working out your quads, rep after rep, and you wonder why your legs are getting bigger and your butt isn’t getting any tighter. Think about it, take a second.
3.) Strength training to melt fat!
Strength training is more beneficial than you think.
For fat loss, weight training is the catalyst that is going to help melt away fat. Consider first that lean muscle not only tightens the body but promotes the reduction of fat. Lifting weights is also more often than not, metabolically more demanding than cardio. This means an increase in metabolism, which helps you to regulate food more effectively, and enables you to burn more calories after the workout is done. Even up to a couple days after your workout.
I know that the calorie counter on cardio machines is fun to look at and it sure does give you a sense of accomplishment, almost like a pat on the back when you get off but that’s it. Although you may not burn as many calories during a strength training session, you will burn more fat in the days following.
Burning fat when I’m not working out? YES!
Unlike cardio workouts, a strength training exercise is exponentially more demanding metabolically. Even during a bent over row you are not just working your back out but you also use your biceps and triceps to help pull the weight, your core is stabilizing, and your shoulder is helping you to balance. More muscles used = more stress on the body = more muscles to repair = more calories spent for the next couple days as your body tries to repair and rebuild everything.
So when does it burn the fat? Great question.
During aerobic exercises like the elyptical, your body is burning oxygen for energy. Strength training is performed in the anaerobic, a state where it resembles a sprint, no oxygen. So, instead the body uses glycogen for the energy.
4.) More Challenge = More Fun
In Ms.Graham’s fourth grade class, we began learning our times tables I did in fact enjoy it. I enjoyed it all the way up to the point where I was acing every quiz and then I got bored. My test scores began actually dropping because I was more interested in her, she was smoking hot by the way, then I was the test itself. My mom finally got concerned and asked “Why are you failing?” . My response “I don’t know, it’s boring” . So she told me to try to finish first in the class every time, this intrigued me.
So for the next month or two I began finishing first in the class and returned to scoring A’s across the board. Point of the story, if your workout is boring, 2 hours on the elyptical machine, your probably not going to want to work as hard let alone do it.
Instead, diversify your workout by incorporating strength training work to make it more challenging, more effective, and more fun. If anything, the results you see will make it more fun!
5.) Women have an advantage over men!
Despite being able to see my own breath, the blanket of warmth from the sun made it an awesome morning to be outside here in Seattle. My friend invited me to go for a jog with her around the University of Washington area and I was totally down, apparently I had forgotten about the hilly terrain when I agreed to this. I met her down in U Village and we started. Her matching attire of hardcore running gear foreshadowed the intensity and misery I would be blindsided by.
It was about 20 minutes into the run that I decided that I really wanted to stop. Her pace only quickened. The pulsating side ache below my left rib cage exponentially increased in pain with each series of urban hills. She looked at me and smiled. I smiled back, or at least I tried my best. She maybe had one drop of sweat roll down her cheek. My t-shirt underneath my jacket was soaked.
After we finished, I barely made it to the end, I did my best to not sound so out of breath.
“Great run!”
“Yeah it was fun, Albert! We should do it again sometime”
“For sure!”
I got into my car and drove home crying. Women have an advantage over men. Yes ladies this is true. You do have an advantage over men in strength training for two main reasons.
1.) Women are able to endure activities longer. This doesn’t mean you get to jump on an elyptical machine for an entire season of Grey’s Anatomy or whatever nighttime drama you watch. But it allows you to work exercises longer, so when it comes to strength training, it is important to progressively increase weight. Often time you will see trainers give women light weight to do for 15 reps just because they are good at it. This is absolutely ridiculous if it doesn’t make you work. So heavier weights doesn’t meaning your lifting to get hugemuscles, it just means to push yourself to an ideal working load. Why? Because you can handle it, and more.
2.) The next and what I think is the more important advantage is chemically related. When dealing with recovery from workouts, women have the ability to recover quicker then men. This is due to their efficiency and quicker production in producing Adenosine triophosphate. This is the chemical source of energy for muscle movement. So by a quicker production, the muscles are jam packed with energy faster then men after a workout. This means faster recovery for muscles to be ready for another workout. Damn, sounds good to me, I am thoroughly jealous.
Conclusion
As I finished my salad at California Pizza Kitchen I walked away with a new, refreshing insight into women and working out. Most women don’t strength train, the ones that do probably aren’t on a goal specific program, and there is a huge stereotype that needs to be broken. By simply incorporating strength training into their working out fat loss is easy! If only I can figure out the rest about women I might have better luck in the dating field!
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