Lifting Weights

5 Reasons Why Women Need to Lift Weights — Benefits of Weight Lifting for Women

Okay, I’m going to be brutally honest with you.

Ladies — if you REALLY want to lose weight…if you REALLY want to get a flat stomach…then you REALLY need to make sure you are lifting weights.

Not only does a weight workout FEEL amazing, but it helps you get results faster than spending hours on the treadmill.

Marine Corps to Fitness Model – Inspirational Woman: Tara Thatcher

From chasing the bad guy to gracing the stage, Tara Thatcher, has turned fitness into a lifestyle. Find out how this inspirational woman made the switch from the Marine Corps to fitness modeling and what both have taught her about being fit.

Womens Ab Workout: TELL US MORE ABOUT YOURSELF. WHO ARE YOU?

Flat Stomach Exercise of the Week – Incline Dumbbell Chest Press

Changing up your workout every few weeks is important not only for your sanity but for your muscles. This week’s flat stomach exercise of the week adds a bit of a twist to a familiar exercise and while helping you see continued results.

This week’s flat stomach exercise of the week is the Incline Dumbbell Chest Press.

The chest press is one of my favorite exercises – it makes me feel strong – especially when I can lift more than the guys next to me in the gym – hehe.  The chest press is one exercise most women stay away from as they fear that it will only bring them big muscles and small boobs. However, its quite the contrary.

First – every woman should be lifting weights.

Secondly – the incline chest press is a great exercise to help you get tight and toned arms. And really – who wants flabby arms?

Add this in place of your push-ups or flat bench chest press and you’ll notice some greater definition in your arms as well as some greater strength – which I always think is exciting!

How many reps? How many sets? Try 3 sets of 10-12 reps to start with.

Need More Exercise Ideas? Try one of these:

Flat Stomach Exercise of the Week – Stability Ball Dumbbell Chest Press

Flat Stomach Exercise of the Week – EZ Bar Skull Crusher

Flat Stomach Exercise of the Week – Barbell Close Grip Chest Press

Need a new exercise for your workout this week? Still trying to get rid of those flabby arms? Well, then I have the exercise for you!

This week’s flat stomach exercise of the week is the barbell close grip chest press. Its a bit of a mouthful, but its a GREAT exercise for your upper body. The barbell close grip chest press will help to change up your workout just a bit – give your muscles a new movement that will have them guessing and continually progressing.

The barbell close grip chest press targets both your triceps and your chest muscles. Women NEED to lift weights in order to see continual weight loss improvements. Many women also tend to stay away from the chest press because

Finding the Key to Success – Inspiring Women: Raechelle Chase

Life can be hectic at times – especially when you are trying to juggle training for a figure competition, 3 kids, a modeling career and a clean diet – just ask this week’s inspiring woman of the week Raechelle Chase.

However, no matter how busy Raechelle seems to be or how hectic life gets trying to balance everything, she continues to move forward, never faltering from reaching her goals. Raechelle’s secret? You have to read on to find THAT out!

Womens Ab Workout: Tell us more about yourself. Who are you? How long have you been training and what are your goals and aspirations in the fitness industry?

My Workout – June 20, 2009

Today’s workout was shoulders/legs (a GREAT idea courtesy of @mandystafford from Twitter).  That’s one of the best parts of social media – exchanging ideas with people all over the fitness industry.  Mandy and I always compare our workouts – and once she told me about this split, I knew I had to try it and I LOVE it. Not rocket science, but it’s different than my last 4 week routine and my body loves it.

I’ll be lifting weights again Monday – which will be chest/biceps and my third weight day is back/triceps.  Combining body parts this way allows me to work each body part just a little bit harder – and means I’m just a little bit sorer the next day (but we all know that I love feeling the results of my workouts!)

Quick tip – make sure to change up your weight routines or workouts every four weeks. This will keep your muscles from getting too used to the exercises. It will also ensure that you are continuing to build muscle and burn fat, while you do your flat stomach workout and getting you closer to reaching your fitness goals.

So, enough chatter – here’s today’s workout.

*The letters denote supersets. So, if two exercises have the same letters in the left hand column, this means that they were done immediately after each other with no rest, until after the second exercise has been completed.

Lose Weight and Get a Flat Stomach

You want to lose weight and get a flat stomach, but you’re not sure what to do to get there.  You’ve read magazine article after magazine article and tried every diet, without success. You’ve tried the low-carb diet, [singlepic=28,300,220,,right] to only binge on a bag of potato chips two weeks later. You’ve tried going to the gym and spent hours on the treadmill, seeing some results, but then life gets crazy and you never go back.

But you still want to lose weight and get a flat stomach – what can you do that will work?

Here are five quick tips to help you get on the road to a flat stomach:

1)  Make the commitment – nothing will work until you make the commitment to yourself to lose weight and get a flat stomach. Write down your goals – what you want to achieve and by when – then put it in a place where you can see them daily. Reminding yourself daily of your goals will keep you focused and make sure that everything you do will help you lose weight.

2)  Lift Weights – No, lifting weights will NOT make you look like a man.  Lifting weights will build muscle on your body and help you get a flat stomach. The more muscle you have on your body the more fat you will burn for longer periods of time after your workout. Try this leg workout for a start.

3)  Do Cardio – Spending hours on the treadmill walking at a slow pace is not an effective way to lose weight. To lose weight and get a flat stomach you need to use high intensity interval training. This type of cardio will increase your heart rate quickly and help you burn fat for up to 48 hours after your workout.

4)  Eat More Often – Eating smaller meals more often will help to increase your metabolism. Decreasing the time between meals will allow your body to stop storing fat. Instead your body will continue to burn fat throughout the day, allowing you to lose weight and get a flat stomach.  Making sure that these meals are healthy options is also an important part of the weight loss process.
[singlepic=27,290,200,,left]
5)  Drink Water – Water has tons of benefits. It is a great alternative to other sugar-filled drinks.  Drinking water throughout the day will also help to keep you full – making sure that you eat when you are hungry not just because you are bored or think you need to eat.

So make this time different.  Make the commitment to yourself to lose weight and get a flat stomach.  Use this five tips to help get you there.

3 Chest Press Exercises for Tight Toned Arms

Every woman wants tight toned arms.  Spending hours on the treadmill or elliptical is not going to do the trick.  So, what do you do to make sure that your arm flab goes away?

You need to start lifting weights.

Yes, ladies, I should not be the only woman in the free weight section of the gym. Every woman should get off of the elliptical and join me!

One exercise that is going to help you tone your arms and drop body fat is the Chest Press. Its good for people at every level of exercise because you can easily adjust the exercise to fit your fitness capabilities.

Take a look a the video below, I talk a bit more about the benefits of the Chest Press and go on to show you three variations you can try.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phpkAJ7hCf8[/youtube]

Have questions? What did you think? Leave a comment or email me and let me know!

Make Each Workout Count

Sometimes people bug me.

Today’s particular ‘bugging’ came this afternoon while I was at the gym.  I was doing my Supine Lat Pull-downs (FYI – My new FAVORITE exercise because it’s helping me do more pull-ups than I ever imagined possible – article coming soon I promise), and I look over at the guy next to me.

My attention was first drawn in his direction because of a slight odor that was not pleasant to my nose and of course I had to find the culprit.  He was sitting on some machine, in between sets, looking at his cellphone. [singlepic=11,275,200,,center]  Now, it bugs me when people are on their cell phone while they are walking around the floor of the gym (Come on! You can be unreachable for a 1/2 hour – you did it at some point in your life – make the commitment to your workout!)

No, this guy wasn’t talking on his phone, instead he found it of UTTER importance to look through all the pictures on his phone. Yes, he has probably never seen these pictures before, but it was at that moment, while in between sets, at the gym on a Monday afternoon, that he decided he MUST look at the pictures on his cell phone.

Okay, so I’m definitely overreacting as to how much this bugged me, but what does bother me are the people who don’t make the commitment to themselves while they are at the gym. You came to the gym to change something in yourself. To change your look, to lose weight, to build muscle, to get stronger – there was some reason WHY you decided to step foot in the gym. Whether you are walking on the treadmill for a 1/2 hour or lifting weights – there is a purpose for your trip to the gym.

If you want your goals to be successful, if you want to see weight loss results, then make sure you don’t lose your focus when you get into the gym. Don’t get distracted by your cell phone, don’t spend so much time trying to find the ‘perfect’ song on your iPod for your next set (do this before you get to the gym), don’t let everyone you know get you into a 15 minute conversation about who knows what.

Make your workouts successful and productive and you will see your weight loss goals achieved sooner than you think.

4 Tips to Jumpstart Your Weight Loss

Not seeing the results you want towards your weight loss goals? Are you ready to start working out and lose weight but aren’t sure where to start?  I’ve been in the exact same place.  When I was trying to lose weight there were plenty of days that I just wanted to give up because I didn’t know what to do next.  I was doing all this hard work and the weight loss results I wanted were not coming.  The frustration it caused wasn’t worth the additional stress to my day, so I took a step back, and took a look at my training to find what was going wrong.
That was the easiest and best thing I could’ve done for myself.  When I took a step back I realized   that I wasn’t doing all I could be doing to successfully lose weight.  So I decided to make some changes, and when I did, the results were amazing.  I was more energized and ready to train and my weight loss results came even faster. What did I do?  Just four simple things…