The answer is you should lift weights as part of your exercise routine regardless of your age.
Most of us know that weight lifting is great for improving bone density, improving strength, helps weight loss etc.
What I wanted to share with you today is why it’s important for females above 40. A-lot of people believe they are too old to lift weights at 40 or even 50, this is nonsense, and I will explain why.
When you reach the age of 40 you lose a pound of muscle per year. Therefore one of the best methods to maintain and improve is weight lifting itself. It may also interest you to know that two of the biggest factors on how your body ages is 1. how much muscle mass you have and 2. your level of muscular strength.
Further consideration
Your buttocks and abdominal muscles are predominantly made up of fast twitch muscle fibres, this basically means they respond better when exercised under a higher load. For example a weight you can only do about 2-4 repetitions of. I bring this up because most females are conscious of storing fat here. So lifting weights is one the best ways to combat this on top of diet, lifestyle, and various other factors. Am I changing your mind?
So maybe I can now, the average body fat percentage of a female aerobics instructor is 20% +. This is surprisingly high for someone who could potentially do 3-6 hours worth of aerobic classes per day. The point here is that if you do steady state cardio you will not burn fat as efficiently as someone who was regularly lifting weights.
When you perform an hours worth of weight training you are only working out for 12 minutes. Whereas an hour of cardio is an hour believe it or not. What’s the point? The point I am making is that weight training places far less stress on the body and all body parts are generally worked. One of the concerns you could have for over 40’s is their potential orthopaedic health, therefore is 60 minutes of constant pounding running on a treadmill the best thing to do? Particularly with knee and various other joint problems on the rise.
Here are some more reasons for weight training
- Weight training raises your metabolic rate.
- Can help prevent joint issues
- With the guidance of a skilled coach you can achieve some great results.
Note for females
You will not get huge muscles from lifting weights.
Give it a try you never know you may get bitten by the iron bug.
Leave A Comment