Active Low-Carber Forums
Atkins diet and low carb discussion provided free for information only, not as medical advice.
Home Plans Tips Recipes Tools Stories Studies Products
Active Low-Carber Forums
A sugar-free zone


Welcome to the Active Low-Carber Forums.
Support for Atkins diet, Protein Power, Neanderthin (Paleo Diet), CAD/CALP, Dr. Bernstein Diabetes Solution and any other healthy low-carb diet or plan, all are welcome in our lowcarb community. Forget starvation and fad diets -- join the healthy eating crowd! You may register by clicking here, it's free!

Go Back   Active Low-Carber Forums > Main Low-Carb Diets Forums & Support > Exercise Forums: Active Low-Carbers > Advanced/High Intensity
User Name
Password
FAQ Members Calendar Mark Forums Read Search Gallery My P.L.A.N. Survey


Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1   ^
Old Wed, Jan-09-13, 02:49
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
Posts: 26,664
 
Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
Default If you want to get in shape, ditch the lady weights and hit the iron

Quote:
From The Telegraph
London, UK
9 January, 2013

If you want to get in shape, ditch the lady weights and hit the iron

Throw away the cabbage soup and scrap the pink plastic lady weights, says Dr Brooke Magnanti. If you really want to get in shape, you need to move serious weight. Actual free weights.


Right, I've had it. You are being lied to.

You are being lied to about diet, about the fantasy that a fortnight of cabbage soup or lemon water or whatever will "detox" you and that all that's standing between you and a perpetual state of Gwyneth Paltrow loveliness is a fruit smoothie and some Ryvitas.

You have been lied to so comprehensively about diet, in fact, that Lib Dem business minister Jo Swinson has issued an open letter to the magazines, papers, and websites that perpetuate this nonsense to try to check the madness.

New year, new you. Get in shape now. The magazines are full of it. One claims you can ' get' Jessica Ennis's enviable body which is utter nonsense. Jessica Ennis looks the way she does because she worked, hard, at being a top-level heptathlete for years. Mini hand weights and a few crunches do not a washboard make.

And even if Ennis is not your physical ideal there is still a lot of b.s. out there. It's an open secret that the fitness models in the back of women's magazines didn't get that way by doing the exercises they pose for. Standing shoulder flys with a tin of soup is not going to magic you onto the cover of a glossy magazine in a bikini.

Take, for example, the blog of fitness model MC Barao. She doesn't look like a "ripped" brawler, and is exactly the sort of sleek, healthy model you'd see in the back of women's magazines. So did she get that body from a combination of fad diets, good genetics, and doing press ups on her knees? No. She got it by moving large amounts of weight, hard.

It's time we picked up some weights

I know you're not going to like this but I have to say it: women, it's time we picked up some weights.

Not pink plastic lady weights that weigh less than your handbag.

Actual free weights. Heavy things. The stuff they gloss over in the gym induction if you're a woman. The stuff they keep in the rooms where the men hang out.

I started lifting when I was 15, because my same-age male cousin started doing it, and I was bored. He weaned me off the chrome hand weights and onto the barbell. It was years before I realised how fortunate that made me. There is no reason to fear being the only girl in the weights room. In fact, the men in there are so wrapped up in their own workouts that they rarely notice.

Later as a rower, I rediscovered my old friend the weights bay. I ain't gonna lie to you - squatting did not give me skinny thighs. That's just not in my genetic makeup. But neither did running or yoga anyway. So I embraced it. Accepted it. Went with my strengths. Started deadlifting like a boss.

Last year I got serious about lifting again, powerlifter style, in part because the local choices in my area amount to a so-so council gym or Highland Games "strongman" sheds dotted around in the glens, and in part because the husband and I wanted something we could do together. So I found a programme that I liked, slapped a poster of Jodie Marsh on the wall, and got to work.

Think about this. All those machines in the gym, all those exercises in the back of magazines, they're about "isolating" this or "spot-reducing" that. In other words you have to do ten, maybe fifteen different exercises to get all the parts of your body that need to be hit. Think you will see results from that before you get bored and give up? No, of course not. Forget specialisation machines that work some tiny little muscle you never heard of.

Lifting hits all those muscles at the same time.

It's about strength - and it feels great

It's strength, real strength. And it is simple. You know what my workout was yesterday? Skip rope, bench press, squat, stretch. Today I'm on deadlift and press, then hill sprints. Not complicated.

It feels great. It is the high of an hour of running only without, you know, an hour of running. But what if your goal is weight loss? Yeah, that's covered too.

The point is, if you want a body that is "toned", you don't do it with plastic dumbbells and vibrating waist bands. You do it with iron. Real iron. If you want a workout that can be squeezed into lunchtime? Hit the iron. Something that will strengthen your joints and improve bone mass? The iron. Something with measurable gains that amount to more than thigh gaps and skinny jeans? The iron.

Something you can still be doing well into old age, when every marathon runner has had a double knee replacement already? The iron.

It doesn't make you bulky unless you want it to - come on, look at me, I'm hardly Arnold Schwarzenegger. It makes you feel like whatever space you are taking up - large, medium, small - you really are filling it out. It's the opposite of wanting to disappear. Lifting weights makes you present.

You are being lied to. When you want to stop being lied to, I'll see you over at the weights.

I'm far from the only one to have turned my back on elliptical machines and endless rounds of Zumba, as evidenced by growing numbers of women who are discovering the joys of the iron.

But the fitness industry continues apace, secure in the knowledge that we have all internalised a lifetime of messages telling us it's not okay to be capable, to be strong, to have a body that serves a function that is more than just decorative. It dovetails so well with the magical thinking about fitness convincing otherwise sane people to endlessly pursue a body image that is attainable only for some.

We can't all look like supermodels. But we can all (supermodels included) get stronger.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/wo...t-the-iron.html
Reply With Quote
Sponsored Links
  #2   ^
Old Mon, Mar-11-13, 17:40
morganhken morganhken is offline
Registered Member
Posts: 14
 
Plan: atkins
Stats: 150/145/130 Male 170
BF:
Progress: 25%
Default

quite interesting. thanks for sharing. women doing some weights is not anymore new to our society, in fact many and many women are in to this activity, not that they want to build big muscles but they want to have a good shape.
Reply With Quote
  #3   ^
Old Wed, Apr-17-13, 10:37
Strongmama's Avatar
Strongmama Strongmama is offline
New Member
Posts: 3
 
Plan: Atkins
Stats: 205/205/154 Female 63
BF:
Progress: 0%
Default

I'm a female powerlifter and love it!
Can't tell you the buzz and power you feel lifting heavy. We are not naturally made to build big muscles.. those that do are often supplementing to make their muscles grow as if a mans.

Personally I'm drug free and happy being every bit a lady lifter.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



All times are GMT -6. The time now is 14:53.


Copyright © 2000-2024 Active Low-Carber Forums @ forum.lowcarber.org
Powered by: vBulletin, Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.