Should women use weight training to lose weight and tone up?
- Jamey Merkel
- Apr 18
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 6
The short answer? A resounding YES! YES! YES!
Now if you’re reading this and you are an normal woman (or a curious man) most of you have the same fitness goals. You most likely want to lose some body fat, “tone up” your arms, maybe see some abs, build sleek sexy legs and develop your butt to be a bit rounder. If I’m wrong, feel free to call me out. But after talking to many of my women clients about their fitness goals, those keep on coming up. Let’s look at this a bit closer.
the truth about "toning up"
If you want to “tone up” that involves building some muscle, and losing body fat. If you don’t build muscle you will just look skinny or even worse, skinny fat. Fat loss is mostly driven by diet and maintaining a calorie deficit, so we will leave that to another post.
Building muscle then would become your top priority. And building muscle means building strength, and building both means weight lifting. Heavy (for you) weights. How heavy? Heavy enough to limit you to 12-15 reps per set.
Now, before you get all “I don’t want to be bulky”, let me let you in on a little secret. The underlying hormone that is responsible for building muscle is testosterone, which as a woman, you have between 5% and 10% of an average male. That means, without taking steroids, you will have a hard time building massive muscle mass. Research has shown that women’s testosterone levels do not increase with weight training, only growth hormone, estradiol (similar to estrogen) and cortisol (Consitt, Leslie A. et al 2002.). So you can essentially train hard, get all the benefits and not worry about getting big. I promise.
benefits of weight training
The benefits of weightlifting for you gals (and curious guys), as discussed in a study conducted by the University of Texas (Wolfe, Robert R. 2006) are numerous
Your chances of developing diseases like diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and cancer are significantly reduced.
Your bones become stronger.
Your metabolism speeds up because muscle, even when idle, burns energy. This makes it easier to stay lean.
Your life expectancy increases.
Your immune system becomes stronger.
If that’s not enough, research has shown that having lean, strong muscles helps you age better, giving you better mobility, lower body weight and lower body fat levels.(Chen, B. B., et al. 2011) Win win.
So what exercises should I do?
For lack of a better way to put it, you train like an athlete. That means picking up a barbell, doing some bench presses, rows, squats, RDL’s and deadlifts. Add some arm curls, tricep work, ab/core training and some metabolic circuits to tie it all together. As you get stronger, your muscles will become more defined, and with a proper diet, the fat will melt away, leaving the sleek new you behind.
If that sounds like what you want, get in touch with me to find out more!
References:
Wolfe, Robert R. “The underappreciated role of muscle in health and disease.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 84.3 (2006): 475-482.
Chen, B. B., et al. “Thigh muscle volume predicted by anthropometric measurements and correlated with physical function in the older adults.” The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging 15.6 (2011): 433-438.
Consitt, Leslie A., Jennifer L. Copeland, and Mark S. Tremblay. “Endogenous anabolic hormone responses to endurance versus resistance exercise and training in women.” Sports Medicine 32.1 (2002): 1-22.
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