Weight training not only makes women stronger, it can contribute to an overall improved quality of life. Women who don’t train with weights because they “don’t want to get bulky” should reconsider. Both men and women can gain numerous benefits from strength training, either by using free weights or resistance machines. It takes a long time, extremely heavy weight & a certain type of diet to foster “bulking” and then even under those conditions it is difficult without a genetic propensity to do so. Women in particular are vulnerable to osteoporosis as they age. Starting a weight training program at any age can help ensure the health of your bones.
Muscle mass naturally diminishes with age. If you don’t do anything to replace the lean muscle you lose, you’ll increase the percentage of fat in your body. But strength training can help you preserve and enhance your muscle mass – at any age.
Increased Bone Density
One of the most important benefits of weight training for women is preventing osteoporosis or bone loss. By performing exercises that place stress on the muscle and tissue attached to the bone, women can increase their bone mass. Research shows that a rigorous weight-lifting regimen when combined with sufficient calcium intake not only protects women from bone loss, it can replenish bone mineral.
General Wellness
Women who train with weights can gain multiple health benefits, including a decrease in lower back pain, state researchers Michael L. Pollock and Kevin R. Vincent of the University of Florida. Strength training also improves a woman’s glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, which decreases her chances of diabetes.
Increased Cognitive Functioning
The New York Times reports on a study that showed working with weights can improve your brain’s ability to focus and make decisions. Two groups of older women, one group performing strength training twice weekly and one doing only balance or toning exercises, were compared after one year. When the women’s cognitive functioning were evaluated, those women in the weight training group had improved performance, while the other group experienced a slight decline.
Increased Metabolism
Any sort of exercise burns calories, but strength training in particular is useful if you are trying to lose excess body fat. When you lift weights, you are building new muscle, essentially “revving up” your body’s engine and burning more calories than ever before.
Strength training only two or three times a week can result in a reduction in overall body fat of about 3% in just 10 weeks, even if you don’t cut a single calorie. That translates to as much as three inches total off your waist and hips. Even better, all that new muscle pays off in a long-term boost to your metabolism, which helps keep your body lean and sculpted.
Better Balance
Weightlifting contributes to stronger core and leg muscles, which increase your ability to maintain your balance & functional strength.
So go lift for life ladies! 
Love, Light, Lashes & Eye of the Tigress!
Alea
Alea Suarez can be contacted for appearances through www.fmg-fitnessmanagementgroup.com
