New Rules of Lifting for Women

After hearing much praise for the book entitled "New Rules of Lifting for Women," I decided to find out what all the fuss was about for myself. I'm always a little skeptical of the next greatest thing for improving your fitness, so I only half committed at first by checking the book out from the library. I figure I might as well make the government useful for my needs since usually I just whine about the sales tax and parking tickets. Anyway, the program looked great after reading through the book, so I decided to give it a go.

The premise of NROLFW is that women are often told to "shape" or "tone" their muscles instead of build muscle like men. The idea that women should do low weights with high repetitions implies that women's muscles are inherently different than men. Well, not really. Low weight/high rep just means you are never fully fatiguing the muscle, so it doesn't build up and gets used to the same movements. On the other hand, high weights with low reps (which used to be a man's world thing) is actually the best way to increase muscle mass. While many women are concerned of "bulking up," that's not really biologically possible because women have much lower levels of testosterone.

Anyway, I started up the lifting program and have completed two days. I haven't quite followed their eating program, but I like to think what I'm doing for food is working out well for me. This will be an adventure to see if I can survive intensive cardio with three days a week of lifting. As the book points out, overdoing it with the cardio can go against what you're trying to achieve in the weight room. However, I'm not willing to give up running and triathlons, so I'll just have to make do with what I've got. Really, I'm hoping to see some awesome muscle definition and results coming our way soon! The program didn't feel too challenging on day one, but I think as the weights increase and the routines build, that will change extremely quickly.