Female: Hello, welcome to Brides Made Fit video blog. I am Jennifer Didonato, thanks so much for joining. This week we are going to be talking about a topic that is kind of annoying to me and it is the myth that women think that they are going to look like men if they just lift weights.
But you are probably thinking about those women in the weight training magazines or those body building magazines, they look like men or they look big. Obviously, we are not going to be working out that much because we have a wedding to plan and you want to make sure that you have enough time to plan your wedding. The reason why women do look like that in those weight training magazines or those body building magazines is because not all of it is natural unfortunately.
There are some body builders out there that are au naturale but unfortunately they do not get as much publicity because size does matter in that sport and it is a sport so to take it to the extreme, sometimes they do use human growth hormone or anabolic steroids. So we want to make sure we are not dabbling into any of those because you do not want to get that big. Now, another reason why you are not going to look like a man or bulky when you weight train is because genetically, women are not set up to have as much muscle as men do so even if we tried our very hardest, there is no way that we are going to look like that even if we strength train and of course if you are working with a trainer or working with someone with a specific plan, they will tell you exactly what to do to get those nice sexy lines for your wedding in that nice strapless dress.
Another myth that I would like to stomp our right now as well is that women are afraid they are going to gain weight when they start their strength training program. That is partially true but a) it is temporary and b) it is very minimal and the reason why that is is when you start a strength training program without even working out before, you are going to notice you are going to get sore and what that is is those little tiny muscle fibers, get those little micro tears and what that does is you may get some water retention and that may cause about a 1 to 4 pound weight gain in the initial month or so of your strength training program.
But with those little tears and retaining that water, it is allowing your muscles to repair and grow and become more dense so you can burn more calories at rest and your muscles can become stronger and work with you as opposed to against you. Unfortunately, initially, that is going to happen a little bit slower than the fat loss so you are going to gain a little of muscle in the beginning with water retention and then the fat loss does not trigger for another few weeks. That is why you want to make sure you are being consistent with your program and at least giving it a 12 week timeframe to see those results so being consistent with strength training is the ultimate way of getting that sleek firm, sexy look so you want to stick with it and please do not be discouraged if you put on a pound or two initially because it is going to come right off. I guarantee it.
Now, if you are wondering, okay I want to start a strength training program, here is a method I want you to try at home. It is really easy, even if you do it every morning just to try and get stronger, it is going to lean out the arms a little bit and work on the chest. This is going to be a push up but I am going to have you do it on your knees so first thing I want you to do is come at your knees. Cross your feet and I want you to bring your hands about shoulder with the part, make sure they are nice and parallel. You are going to keep your abdominals nice and tight. You want to keep the back straight to make sure it is not dipping or sticking the butt out. You want to keep everything nice and straight. Now, you are going to come down slowly and exhale at the top.
Come down slowly, kind of resisting it and come back up. Now, women about 20 to 29 years old, I want to see you do about 17 of these. That is typically the average and it is something that would show you that you are a little bit more in shape that you thought you were so if you cannot reach 17 of these, make sure you do them every morning and set a little goal for yourself. If you can only do five, that is fine. The next day, try a goal for six. So you want to do about three sets of these, try about 10 to 15 everyday until you are gaining that strength and if you are sore the next day, you want to make sure that you are resting a little bit, resting those muscles, make sure they are repairing so they can work for you.
Now, if you have any questions about any of this that I covered today, feel free to contact me, email me at jenny@bridesmadefit.com and I want to hear if you have any questions or anything your read or any other myth that you would like me to address, I will be more than happy to so just email me and we will address it in the blog and you can always check it out every week and you can also give us a call at 888 Made Fit. I will see you next week, take care.
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