WOMEN AND WEIGHTS: IMPOSSIBLE COMBINATION?

Edited by Francesca Fanolla

In my experience as a weight room instructor, I often came across, and still happens to me, in nice female conversations that I would almost call "skits" because they are now standard and practically all very similar in speeches, ways and dynamics.

The situation is always the same: sitting at the desk in the weight room, all of a sudden I see a shy figure appear at the door, observing with suspicion the austere environment in which she was indicated, in the secretariat, to enter to reach the instructor. He waits a moment, he is almost hesitant, then he takes courage and armed with a towel and bottle of water that he holds to his chest, like a Roman soldier throws himself into the strong battlefield of a sword and a shield, he quickly crosses the one he already considers a jungle ', making the slalom between sweaty benches, discs left on the ground, 40kg dumbbells, tools that look like torture machines and comes to me almost with grief for the ride just made, sits a little more reassured by having in front, like a vision, a female figure. Sitting in front of me she gives her back to the sweat-stained hypertrophic macho who emit strange sounds while pumping their muscles, lifting tons and looking for attention (especially in the evening time, the most crowded, where in the gym there is the largest type of user, from the male one who trains for the sake of training to what is instead pumped only for the pleasure of being looked at and perhaps even admired by the little girls who, between a chat and the other, every now and then, a series of abdominals can finish it. ..).

We move on to the presentations and, even before I can ask the girl the typical and fundamental questions for the initial anamnesis and then present the objectives and a training plan, here comes the classic phrase: "However I wanted to tell you that I absolutely don't want to become big and put muscle, maybe I just do some treadmills, exercise bikes, and exercises to lose weight here, here and here ".

Specific that "here, here and here" stands for hips, buttocks and inner thighs and is somewhat the cursed trinomial of all women, the so-called 'critical points' where, either by natural bodily predisposition as circulatory difficulties, you want for bad Eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle are known to accumulate the unsightly 'bearings'.

Surely this is a problematic and a 'fixed' that I had and that I still have too, being a common mortal woman and with the typical 'defects' of the female sex (even if I work in the gym!), But over time I have learned to observe it with different eyes and above all to consider my female body no longer just from the waist down, but rather as a set of body and muscle segments that must be treated, trained and considered inseparable from each other, built and maintained in the way as harmonious and balanced as possible, without overestimating some parts at the expense of others.

All this to say simply to invite female users to approach the weight room without fear, nor fear of becoming men by training with isotonic machines and free weights, always and mistakenly considered a priority for men.

It is true that even today many Body Building and Fitness magazines still offer photos and horrible images of masses of moving muscles that dare to define men and, often, also women. But that is a different matter, that is the professional Body Building, from competition, the one that can be admired (or abhorred) in high-level competitive events such as the Mister and Miss Olympia etc ...

The reality of the weight room of a very common gym is quite different (fortunately), dear women.

Personally, after 4 years of dance, 10 years of volleyball at competitive level and various sports practiced "in my spare time", I can say that my encounter and love at first sight for Body Building has changed my life, my body and my my way of understanding it.

I have been training in the weight room for ten years now, while also practicing other more "aerobic" and dynamic activities such as volleyball, spinning etc. at the same time, and I literally transformed into forms and built my body exactly as I had always wanted it, on a level unconscious, as a young girl. Yet even I, who now boast broad shoulders, well placed but symmetrical, "upright", and tonic, I had an approach, albeit brief, with anorexia, a victim also of the very wrong skeletal models that fashion, trend and society imposes us almost as perfection and key to success in work, in love, in life. But I will gladly talk about this experience of mine again ...

I will not dwell further and I will explain to you briefly, what are the benefits that you could get from a reasoned, organized and studied training based on your needs (which you are not always the ones to really see, but rather the expert eye of the instructor himself ...), to your physical structure, to the presence of possible problems such as osteo-articular pathologies, etc., not to be overlooked, before venturing into any training plan.

ADVANTAGES OF TRAINING WITH WEIGHTS FOR WOMEN:

Increase and improvement of energy metabolism (and therefore better use and 'disposal' of caloric intake)

Reduction of blemishes such as cellulite, and fat accumulation thanks to the improvement of peripheral blood and lymphatic circulation (this especially with the practice of circuit training with the alternation of aerobic stations, see article on 'Circuit Training')

Increased muscle tone (not of 'abnormal muscle mass, which is quite another thing and takes a long time and a very intense type of training) and improvement of the symmetry of the various muscle areas

Improved posture (especially in the typical and widespread "falling" aspect with protrusion of the head forward, drooping and relaxed shoulder stumps and kyphotic dorsal attitude)

Improvement of the bodily "lines" in general and "in toto", starting from the calves to end at the neck !!

Improvement of esteem, gratification and self-confidence (given by visible aesthetic improvements and also by the increase in the load lifted during the months)

General psycho-physical improvement (however, given by any physical and sports activity)

So start your weight room training in a peaceful way; consider it as the place, perhaps the only one that can allow you to build, shape your body in complete completeness, make of that room your 'aesthetic and FUNCTIONAL center', because it doesn't just matter that your body is nice 'but it is important that it is also functional, responsive, able to "move" and "move" when, how and where you want. Make present anyway your doubts and main objectives to the instructor or to the Personal Trainer, but don't just fossilize on your buttocks and legs, remember that your body, and the female one in general, is also made of other muscles and care of these, as a whole, will not be able to do anything but give you a beautiful, harmonious, muscular 'at the right point' (I repeat and I repeat that in order to 'turn you out' it takes years and years of heavy training that you don't even imagine and specific for hypertrophy to which female genetics is not, by nature, easily prepared, as well as the use of large quantities of supplements and, in the most glaring cases, illegal substances such as male hormones and very special diets).

In any case, therefore, your card will never be the same as that of the muscular big man who has been training for years and to which nature has given the predisposition to the muscle growth you see and even if it were you would never, at the same time and in equal measure those same results.

Be tonic and snappy, take care of your legs, buttocks, yes, but also of the muscles of the back and shoulders (essential for an impeccable posture and which, if 'enlarged', will allow you to better hide a particularly large pelvis '), of the arms, of the abdominals (the center and the fulcrum of the body and of the movement), in short, of ALL your body and not only of those parts that you want to make you believe are the fundamentals for feminine aesthetics.

Be what you want to be, not what others want you to be ...

Good workout!!