Build Your Muscles and Confidence!
- iriskleinstapel3
- Apr 13
- 4 min read
“Weight Training” is a scary term for many women. I too once found the idea to be a daunting one. This changed once I gave it a chance. Sometimes having a better understanding of something can make it less intimidating. This is why I am going to share the six principles of weight training. Once I gave it a try, I realised that it was not as scary and complicated as I expected. It changed my life for the better and it can change yours too! Don’t miss out on all the wonderful benefits that weight training can give.
The six principles of weight training
1 Warm up/stretch, cool down/stretch
A proper warm-up is important, same as cool-down and stretching when you start with weight training. Neglecting a warm-up can lead to muscular imbalances, improper form, and injury. Spend 5-10 minutes on the treadmill or elliptical, jump rope or simple jumping jacks etc. to warm up. A cool-down is also crucial for your body to restore itself from exercising and regulate your heart rate and body temperature. In a perfect world, you would stretch out before and after your workout. However, this world is not perfect and at least stretching before or after would already make a great difference.
2 Keep it simple
One of the worst things you can do is over-complicate your training. This does not only lead to needless injuries, but it can also overwhelm you. When we feel overwhelmed, we’re more likely to quit. Keeping our lifting programme sweet and simple will keep your enthusiasm and build success! when you’re just starting weight training, start with learning the compound lifts. A compound lift is an exercise that needs more than one muscle group. The top 3 compound lifts are squats, deadlifts and bench press. These exercises may sound scary, but they certainly are not. What can help is finding someone that knows these lifts and can guide you, be it a trainer or a friend. Learning proper form is most important. Once you have the form right, everything else is relatively simple. These lifts will deliver strength gain, physical and mental change.
3 Strengthen your weakness
Okay, so far we focused on the basics. We learned proper form for the compound lifts, but we definitely also have some weaknesses. In order to become better at an exercise, you need to continue to practice that exercise. While this is true and will allow you to make good progress you can also start with some supporting exercises. For many women, the bench press is enemy #1. If your bench press is weaker than it should be, focus on strengthening this weaknesses. For example your chest may be to blame, but it could also be your triceps or core. In order to fix this weaknesses, you can practise supporting exercises, like triceps extensions or planks. Improving these muscle groups will help improving compound lifts; making you stronger and giving you a more athletic, fit look.
4 Push it!
You need to lift (somewhat) heavy. In order to make progress after the first month or so, you need to increase the stress on your muscles. For the first few weeks of your training routine, you will see substantial gains using relatively “light” weight. Our bodies are incredibly adaptable and will adapt to performing the same weight, sets, and reps over and over. “If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.” This is not just a quote, it is actually very accurate. In addition to increasing the amount of weight lifted (while maintaining proper form), we can also adjust the volume. This means we can do more sets and repetitions as well as increase training frequency. Overloading the muscle will promote strength, growth, and endurance.
Something to make a note of:
For muscle growth, perform 3-5 sets of 8-12 reps of moderately heavy weight.
For strength, do 3 to 5 sets of 5-6 reps of heavy weight.
5 Track the Progress
All of this will be useless if you are not tracking your progress! Being consistent is key here. It is hard to stay consistent if we do not know what we are doing. Build yourself a training programme, have a trainer design one for you or find one online. Follow it and make notes of the exercise, weight used, number of sets and the number of repetitions. Tracking your progress will help you to see where your plateaus are so you can work on that.
6 Listen to your body!
Maybe the most important of all; LISTEN – TO – YOUR – BODY! There will be days when you are not in the mood to work out. You need to establish for yourself ahead of time when you are just being lazy and when you genuinely do not have it in you to train today. Overtraining is real and can happen. If you really feel exhausted, that is your body telling you it needs to rest. Listen to it, because rest is also an important part of your training and progress. However, on those days where you are just not feeling like it, get yourself off the couch and start working. Remember, consistency in your routine will make or break you.
Feeling weak can also mean something is lacking in your diet. Eat well-rounded meals. Make sure you are drinking enough water and eating enough protein. (1 gram of protein per pound of body weight is a general rule of thumb.) Your body needs nourishment and will let you know when something is lacking, you will feel it. Weight training requires carbs for fuelling, so do not cut them out completely. And when you are really sick, please stay home and rest. Working out while trying to get over an illness is a recipe for disaster…
To conclude...
Weight training does not have to be scary, it is actually one of the most exciting things that you can do! A customised training programme that is focusing on proper form and the correct amount of volume can change not only your body, but can change YOU! You will become stronger, more confident in your appearance and feel unstoppable. Weight training is one of the most empowering things you can do for yourself, so I hope you will give it a try and enjoy!
Below videos to explain how to do the 3 compound exercises; squats, deadlift and bench press.
Squats
Deadlift
Bench Press
Pics @irisfoodforthought / Inspo Women's Health
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