International Women’s Day

Today is international women’s day.


So, what is it?


Is it a day where women are in total control of everything?


No, but we really know you are.


According to the website internationalwomensday.com it is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.


This years it’s all about breaking the Bias. Smashing Stereotypes etc.


Now I’m all up for celebrating strong powerful women, jesus, the world would be a mess without them and let’s be honest chaps, none of us would be here without them.


Now, I love the fact that here at the Fox Den we enable and help women who have no self-confidence, no self-belief, little strength and, when they come in a lot of them don’t like looking at themselves as they don’t like what they see.


We, help them achieve more self-belief, more self-confidence and we help them get strong as fuck.


They lift weights.


They Do Cardio


They make themselves so much fitter, stronger and, I love this part most of them are now stronger than their partners.


A lot come in looking to get fitter, leaner, lose body fat and feel better about themselves.


So, what can you do about that?


Well, if you want to get fit and look lean and defined then you need to lift weights or add some sort of resistance training into your day to day life.


However, I hear it all the time to start with, I don’t want to lift weights or I don’t want to lift anything too heavy as I don’t want to become all bulky and huge, well I will come to the reasons why you won’t later.


Too many women have had it drilled into them that the numbers that matter are on the scales, the naughty step, realistically you will never be happy with what you see on the scales.


Firstly, I want to just give you a few of the benefits of lifting weights, apart from getting tighter, more toned, you will also gain more confidence, your self-esteem will go up as you begin to like your body again, you will start to feel good in and out of clothes


Lifting weights and getting strong will change the way your body looks it will make you feel better about yourself.


So, I will go into a few of the benefits in a little bit more detail.


Metabolism – basic fact of the matter is the more muscle you have the more you will burn at rest. So, the leaner muscle you have and maintain the better the effect on fat loss, it also means you can eat more, win win as far as I’m concerned.


Bone Density – Ok I admit if you are of the female species and you are in your 20’s or early 30’s you are probably not worrying about bone density, however at some point in your life you will, as you go through the menopause your bone density can reduce leading to Brittle Bone Disease, lifting weights through resistance training can improve your bone density, so don’t think you can’t lift into 50’s or 60’s just remember you are only as old as you allow yourself to be. Feel better no matter how old it says you are on your birth certificate.


The oldest person I train is late 60s and she smashes it. We honestly think she is part cyborg. Now, remember this bit, she only starting training and doing really any form of exercise 4 years ago. It’s never too late.


Independence – Being Strong is great, being able to do stuff that you would normally have struggled with before is such a good feeling. How about that as a confidence booster, a quick story about an old client of mine, well she came home and found her husband asking her son to give him a hand getting this tool box into the back of the van, this was going on for some time and then she just had enough, walked out picked it up and put it in the back of the van as if it was feathers.


She was walking 6 inches taller for a week through the confidence that gave her.


Why should you depend on others to help you when you can do it yourself? It’s the age-old test, the jar that cannot be opened, stop giving in and try to open it yourself, however if you do pass it over and he can’t open it, you’re dating your gran


Confidence – When you are strong you do feel as if you can do and achieve anything, so you do start to believe it. You start to look at yourself in a different way, you feel better, you feel stronger, you walk taller, facing the world instead of hiding away from it. Who doesn’t want to look at themselves and think you know what you are brilliant.


Curves – By lifting weights you don’t get that stick like body shape that can happen with lots and lots of cardio. By lifting your body will change you will get that curvy shape that women want, I mean who doesn’t like good lady curves.


Better Sleep – As long as you are not overdoing it with the training and allowing your body to recover properly you will get better quality sleep, you will wake less, waking up and getting up in the middle of the night is not normal, you think it is, but it isn’t, you should be able to close your eyes and sleep to recover for a good 6-8 hours. Better quality sleep means better recovery, which in turn means better performance and feeling brilliant.


Fights depression and Relieves Stress – Lifting weights and resistance work can help with your energy levels, you really do get that feel good factor come through immediately, as a client mentioned earlier to me, with the cardio side of it, you feel knackered at the end of the session and sometimes ruined but the feel good factor kicks in later, with the weights, once you’ve lifted that weight you feel good, especially when you go heavier than you have before. By having those endorphins released into the body, you feel better so your stress drops, you begin to feel better about yourself, the light shines through and you can keep those dark clouds away.


As I said at the beginning you won’t get big and bulky and this won’t happen for a couple of reasons. You don’t have the hormones to bulk up huge and maintain it, you don’t have the testosterone in your body to do it, without obviously injecting shed loads of steroids.


Gaining muscle isn’t easy, bulking up isn’t easy if you do it right, unless you are one of those small % genetic lucky bastards that just look at a barbell and go boom bigger already.


To gain a lot of muscle and size you need to eat a shit load of food, when I say a load, I do mean a load. I am pretty sure if you are reading this you probably aren’t eating anywhere near enough to get all big and bulky like the she hulk.


So, what should you do?


Pretty much to start with get taught how to do the basic big movements safely, you can just keep it to the big 6 and everything will come along for the ride. Don’t over complicate the workout, will it be hard, yes of course, will sitting on an exercise bike for an hour whilst watching the tv be easier then yeah but it won’t give the same results.


So stick to Squats, Deadlift, Bench, Rows, Pull Ups, and Military Press all the main lifts you will see the peacocks do down the gym, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be doing these as well, once you have those done and you are getting it going, you can bring in some other exercises if there is a part of you that you want to concentrate on.


Do those with a bit of cardio as well and you will burn fat, feel good, look tighter, look more defined and to be honest have a great bum lift in the process.


Now just remember, not sure where to start, ask someone, drop me a line or find a coach to help point you in the right direction.


Be wonder woman.


Tags

fitness, Health, international womens day, The Fox Den, wokingham, Wokingham gym


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