WEIGHT LIFTING

Love it or hate it, resistance exercise, if done with enough intensity and enough regularity is going to get you where you want to be body shape and fitness wise.

It's being shouted about by everyone involved in the fitness industry, and has been for a long time now, that steady state cardio won't help you make the changes you're after. It's also very dull and boring. Who really wants to pound the streets for hours, or the treadmill in the gym, when you can bang a weights session out in less than half that time and get better results quicker.

So why should you lift weights? :

1. Well, it'll increase your strength for functional, everyday activities for a start - piggy backs for the kids, grocery shopping, moving furniture to name but a few. It'll make them easier than a walk in the park!

2. It'll help to boost a stalled metabolism - a benefit that becomes more important as we age. Every decade apparently it slows down by three per cent, and we lose muscle and gain fat. That's not a good thing! Lifting weights is the best way to prevent or reverse muscle loss - muscle burns calories more efficiently than fat.

3.It'll make you smile. You'll feel powerful and in control of your body, and your mind, because you have to focus on what you're doing.

4. It'll improve your self confidence, as your body shape changes, how much better are you going to feel about yourself?!

5.It never needs to be boring; there are thousands of different exercise variations so there's no excuse for doing the same thing week in, week out. Plus it's good to shock your muscles by mixing it up a lot.

6. It can improve your bone mineral density, minimizing the osteoporosis risk.

7. Ladies, you won't bulk - you don't have the testosterone that men have, so unless you're doing weights and taking steroids you'll just get definition and tone but not bulk.

8.You burn calories after you've worked out not just while you're doing it - not an excuse for chocolate but............

9. It keeps you healthy in other ways. It's good for improving joint stability as it strengthens ligaments and tendons. This is most useful in others sports, as it'll help prevent injury.

10. Weight training can help your heart stay healthy by increasing your good cholesterol (HDL) and decreasing your bad (LDL), and your blood pressure too.

11. And last but not least, defined muscles look sexy right? Well I think so.

Today's Tip : SO, if you're a new comer to weights, give me a call and we can have lots of fun with some great programmes. If you're a lapsed weight trainer, how about taking it back up, it is January after all..............