Why should women not lift weights?
- Shanu Shashank
- Aug 11, 2020
- 4 min read
Women and weight lifting has been a topic of debate for quite a while now and honestly I do not understand the brouhaha around it.
Primarily because it’s her choice and it’s completely normal for a female to lift weights . Secondly, if you find it problematic then kindly buy heavy weights , tie them onto your feet and jump so that you never resurface from that pool of mediocre thinking. Period!
Sadly, the fault in perception and lack of information or rather I would say plethora of misinformation has made women pay a heavy price and most women I have guided had to be persuaded to do it for their own good.
“Barbells don’t care if you are a man or a woman or from the 3rd gender.”
So let me say this is in CAPS: LIFTING WEIGHTS WILL NOT MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A MAN !!
In fact it's equally essential for a female to do resistance training as much as it is for a man.
I know there are many individuals who still have a hard time in accepting this fact but not my headache. Rather let us take the path of science , rationality and logic to arrive at a well informed opinion.
The way our society has been conditioned, allows for the greater population to believe that femininity construes women to be soft and fragile and they are meant to just take care of the household chores for most part of their lives and the population across the world believed the same, until the time things started evolving among masses.
So, let us look at what studies have to say when it comes to women and weight lifting.
One obvious benefit of weight lifting is it will make them stronger and develop better muscular endurance, which perhaps will make it easy for them to manage daily chores and activities like moving objects, playing or picking up kids, cleaning, etc. (Ref1)
Another big advantage is improvement of several dimensions of health and fitness like better hormonal levels, proper sleep, thus contributing towards an improved quality of life.
With our upbringing largely influenced by societal conditioning, a number of females have been found to go through negative body image issues, whether it's about how much fat % they are carrying, color or height. While the latter two are not really the things that can be controlled, it's a natural phenomena; reduction in fat mass and improved muscle mass has been helping women in an improved perception of their physical appearances by making them fitter. (Ref 2,3)
So, clearly there is a correlation between greater degree of fitness and women who lift but none on “ how my weight lifting is making me look like a man.”
And what about hormones?
Talking majorly about the menstrual cycle, there are three main hormones- estrogen, testosterone and progesterone involved in its regulation. One one side where estrogen (primary sex hormone) helps in reducing fatigue and muscle damage and also promotes bone health, testosterone helps in improving energy, endurance and muscle mass, and lesser mood swings. Progesterone plays a big role in regulating body temperature and managing mood swings. All these work hand in hand and weight training holds an essence in improving their levels collectively. (Ref 4,5,6,7)
Weight training as a physical activity has been found to help individuals stay away from injuries, irrespective of the gender and age.
But, what about the idea that weight lifting makes women bulky and masculine?
As a matter of fact, it takes years of training for a woman to have that level of muscle mass. More than that, it is the role of following a diet which is quite high in calories. The primary hormone - testosterone responsible for muscle growth is relatively less for females as compared to males (at least 10-20 times lesser), while the starting point for muscle mass is naturally lesser, too. So, the thought of looking masculine due to weight training could only happen in dreams that defy science. (Ref 8)
It could be quite intimidating for a newbie at the beginning to see those female trainees lifting some heavy dead lifts and squats, although they are just working harder at their own levels and my advice to the newbie: watch and learn.
In fact you get leaner and more defined with better body composition constituting of decent muscle mass and lesser fat %. Win win, I would say .
For those citing Sanskriti (tradition) and culture :
Utensils from time immemorial ,until the 2nd world war when stainless steel was introduced, were made of Copper. Guess the men folk were not the ones who were lifting heavy!
The female workers are found to be lifting bricks and mixers, and yeah, those women are quite lean. There are men too so guys, do not get intimidated.
Women in rural India tend to other activities that are lifting heavy in nature - preparing cattle feed, carrying harvest and wood bundles on their heads, strapping small children around themselves while tea picking, lifting heavy buckets and containers of water and walking for miles. Again, you guessed it right - men are not the ones heavy lifting here!
The point is, it does not matter whether you are in urban pockets or rural hinterlands, whether you are a man or woman, heavy weight lifting is not going to make you look anything you don’t want. On the contrary, it shall help you regain fitness level, your bones and joints will thank you and most importantly, you will feel good about yourself.
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