Chicks and Lifting

Since The bully's friend Q is really paying attention to the posts and serious about getting in shape, i thought i would give a little insight on chicks and lifting.

The biggest misconception that women have with lifting weights is: Lifting will make me big and bulky. Don't no chick wanna look like Chyna. So when a girl says she's "working out" she's doing some cardio and some crunches.

Maybe week one will go by and she will notice that she's lost like 5 pounds. So she's happy. She keeps pushing and next thing you know she's stuck at the five pounds and that's all she can lose.

Well here's where that apporach is breaking down. All that cardio is really doing good for your heart, but it's doing very little towards burnign the body fat, which is ideally what most women are trying to do. Your body burns very little fat when you're actually working out.

That's where weight training comes into play. See when you do resistance training, you are creating these microscopic tears in your muscle tissue. Within an hour after you're done working out, your body goes into repair mode to fix the little microscopic tears that you've got. So it's trying to pull protein from everywhere in your body to make these fixes. that's why it's important to supply your body with protein right after a hard workout.

Now the fat burning properties of muscle are what makes resistance training all the more worth it. In order to sustain muscle, your body goes to your fat stores first. It's during intense activities, typically after 20 mins and your heart rate is elevated, that your burns carbodhydrates and sugars for energy. (This explains why the "fat burning" level on most cardio machines is so much less intensive than the "cardio" level)

so ladies, don't be afraid to lift. And remember, the biggest muscle groups burn the most fat when you're resting. So when you lift focus on your chest, back, and legs. Also isloation exercises, like dumbells instead of barbells, use a bunch of secondary muscle fibers during the course of the exercise motion. So when you do the incline dumbell press, you're working on your chest, but in order to keep your body aligned properly, you're involuntarily using your shoulders, your back and your abs.

One more thing, lifting makes you a whole lot more aggressive when it comes to beatin and skeetin. And in the long run of things, that's all we ever really care about...

-e-muffugin-dot!