A common mistake made by most individuals seeking to improve their overall health or trying to lose weight is omitting resistance training from their plans.  Most will try diets or at least some form of aerobic activity; however few ever consider the importance of resistance training.

Benefits of weight training:

• Decreases body fat and increases lean body mass
• Increases metabolism, which causes you to burn more calories throughout the day (even while you sleep)
• Improves muscular endurance
• Increases overall strength
• Decreases resting blood pressure by increasing blood circulation
• Reduces risk of developing adult onset diabetes
• Increases blood level of HDLs, the good type of cholesterol
• Improves functioning of the immune system
• Lowers resting heart rate, a sign of a more efficient heart.
• Strengthens bones reducing the risk of developing osteoporosis
• Decreases gastrointestinal transit time, reducing the risk of colon cancer
• Improves self-esteem and reduces stress, anxiety, and depression
• Gives you more energy to help you feel younger throughout the day

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Women in particular fall victim of not integrating an adequate amount of resistance training.  This is probably the case because of the many myths and misinformation about women and resistance training.  The most common fear women have is that weight training will make them look too muscular, perhaps like a bodybuilder.  Well, here are the facts, and why its important especially for woman to partake in resistance training.

Women and resistance training :

• Weight training adds lean muscle and reduces overall body fat.
• Unlike men, women typically don't gain size from resistance training.  Why?  Women have 10 to 30 times less of the hormones, including testosterone, that cause "bulking up".
• New muscle will help control your weight.  As you add muscle from resistance training, your resting metabolism will increase, so you'll actually burn more calories all day long.  For each pound of muscle you gain, you'll burn 35 - 50 more calories daily.  Lets say you added 4 pounds of muscle and burned an extra 40 calories per pound.  You'll burn 160 more calories per day, or 4800 more calories per month.  After one year, that equals a weight loss of 16-17 pounds by resistance training alone.
• Not only will your appearance change but you'll be a stronger woman.  Moderate weight training increases a womans strength by 30 - 50%, which will make it easier to accomplish daily tasks.
• Particularly important for woman, your bones will greatly benefit.  Once you leave high school, you have reached all the bone mineral density you'll ever have unless you strength train.  Research has found that weight training can increase spinal bone mineral density by 13% in just 6 months.  So strength training is a powerful tool against osteoporosis.
  

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