Why is it a great for women to Kettlebell?

Most studies showing the positive effects of exercise have been done with men.  The few studies that have included women have indicated that women may benefit even more than men from being physically fit.  Early indications show that physically fit women enjoy even more greatly reduced rates of death from heart disease than men.

Women who don’t exercise have twice the chance of dying from heart disease as women who do exercise. Similarly, women who smoke double their chances of dying from heart disease when compared to women who don’t smoke. Women may live longer than men, but they don’t necessarily live better.  Elderly women who haven’t been physically active experience more disability in their daily functioning than women who’ve been active.

Women need more of a balanced fitness program than men do: they need to increase their muscular strength, which enhances quality of life because it enables better performance of day-to-day activities; improved muscle tone and appearance; increased bone density, helping to reduce the risk of osteoporosis; decreased risk of coronary disease; improved posture; and increased resting metabolism. It helps reduce body fat, which is great for middle-aged women who typically run into sluggish metabolism and find it harder to keep weight off, and it improves mood and combats feelings of depression, due to increased levels of dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine.

So what puts women off using weights to train?

Most women subscribe to the myth that weight training will make them bulky and masculine. This is because they have been ill-informed by people who are poorly schooled in Physiology.

Let’s take a look at this one once and for all.

It’s a scientific fact that women do not produce anywhere near the amounts of testosterone that men do (one of the main hormones responsible for increasing muscle size).  So from this biological standpoint it is much harder for women to put on muscle bulk. Even the professional women bodybuilders have to take anabolic steroids (synthetic testosterone) with a range of other drugs to effect the changes in their muscularity which compared to men is still small. Also they have to spend hours per week that culminate into years of training lifting very heavy weights to gain muscle bulk. If you look at the women who weight train without the use of steroids they have a firm and fit cellulite-free looking body. A good example of this is the sports kettlebell women, they compete using 16kg and 24kg KB’s, lifting them as many times as they can in 10-minutes, these athletes are all lean, toned and very strong.

Most women do cardio workouts or lift light weights in a class. Only doing cardio will mean that muscle and fat are burned for fuel and over-training in this way can have quite a negative effect on a woman’s hormone balance, which can lead to some of the above-mentioned health problems because the exercise is not balanced.

A balanced exercise program, which Kettlebell training provides more than most other forms of training, keeps the muscles toned without making them bulky, and helps to prevent any loss of muscle tissue. Women that only concentrate on cardio will have a very hard time achieving the look that they want. Lifting of very light weights is just more nonsense. Muscles respond to resistance and if the resistance is too light, then the muscle receives an underload which will not be helpful in keeping its tone.

We have many women enthusiastically training with kettlebells at the Kettlebell Studio. There is no reason why you should not join them, and every reason you should!