The Integra Blog

Strength Training for Women

Ladies: what can you expect from strength training?

The gym environment has been part of my life since I was fourteen years old, when the family doctor prescribed resistance training as a means to manage my scoliosis. Like many women my primary goal was to be “toned”, which to me meant achieving good muscle definition and maintaining a trim figure. Although I wasn’t shy of sharing the weights area of the gym with large men lifting dumbbells as big as my head, I kept my own weights quite light and my reps high, as I believed big weights would make me bulky, and that a workout was worthless if you didn’t leave the gym sweaty and tired. Consequently, I’d do a light resistance workout followed by half an hour of cardio, usually totalling 60-75 minutes of training.

This approach delivered some results, but I soon reached a plateau. My muscle definition, though quite constant, was not actually improving and I wasn’t able to lift substantially more weight from week to week. I’d achieved a reasonable level, but couldn’t seem to progress. Clearly a change was called for.

Enter strength training proper.

How did this differ from my previous workouts?

• 1: As little “cardio” as possible, and definitely none at the end of a weight-training session (for the sake of argument I’m defining “cardio” as continuous activity lasting more than ten minutes, done with relatively low resistance and with the goal of raising the heart rate and getting sweaty. The kind of stuff you’d usually do on a bike, crosstrainer or treadmill. We could get into a whole debate about what really constitutes cardio but I’ll leave that for another day!).
• 2: Lift heavy and do not fear low reps!
• 3: Vary lifting tempo, i.e. the speed at which you move.
• 4: Exercise for a maximum of 35 minutes.

At the beginning, this was quite a shock to the system. I simply did not believe that I could stay trim and get stronger by training less and reducing cardio work. Furthermore, my exercise experience was completely different. I was used to finishing a workout physically exhausted; I’d now finish a workout feeling physically ok but mentally exhausted.

What was going on? I knew I’d pushed myself during every set, I knew I physically couldn’t have done another rep. So why didn’t my body feel tired? Why was mental fatigue the prevailing feeling?

Strange as this might sound, muscle strength starts in the brain. The heavier the weight you lift, the more motor units the brain has to recruit; in other words, your brain works harder when you lift heavier. As a result, if you’ve always kept to the classic 8-12 reps usually prescribed for women and suddenly choose a weight that will have you struggling on rep 4 your brain will need to adjust. This can take anything from a few sessions to a few weeks, but once it’s done the feeling of mental fatigue fades, and the prevailing post-workout sensation goes back to being muscle fatigue.

So far so reasonable. My next question was: is it working?

By monitoring my progress from week to week the answer was undoubtedly yes. I got stronger, I didn’t get bulky and my muscle definition improved. And all the while I ate normally, I didn’t take any supplements (other than fish oils) and I didn’t drink five protein shakes a day. I also discovered something else: in those two months of heavy lifting, my connection to my body improved more than it ever had in the previous ten years of cardio and “toning”. I could suddenly feel areas I’d previously been completely unaware of. I had lats - who knew?!

There are mainly three points I’d like you to take from my experience.

The first is that goals and expectations are not always in line, at least not at the beginning. If you expect to feel in a certain way after a workout, but the workout that will produce that feeling is not conducive to your goals, it’s worthwhile asking yourself what’s more important: the feeling or the goals? Are those goals still valid if they don’t produce that feeling? Or might you have to re-define those goals?

The second point leads on from the first: doing something just because it makes you feel good is fine. I do a lot of my training for exactly that reason. But be clear about your motivations to ensure your actions and goals are properly aligned.

Finally, remember that if you want to achieve something you’ve never achieved before you have to be open to experiencing something that you’ve never experienced before. If everything you’ve tried so far hasn’t really worked you probably won’t know how it feels to do something that does work - and that feeling might not be what you expect.