Follow Me!

Do you enjoy the posts on my Women's Strength blog? Let me and other readers know that you are a fan.

Become a Follower of the Women's Strength Blog

Just look for the Followers widget on the right of this page and click on the "Follow" button underneath:

You'll then see a pop-up window with the options to either follow publicly or privately:

Select how you'd like to follow the blog, then click the "Follow this blog" button. It's that simple. You are now a follower!

If you elect to follow the blog publicly, your profile picture will be displayed on the blog with a link to your Blogger profile. (Note: The widget may not show all followers of the blog. If this is the case all followers will be linked from the widget.) When you become a follower, the blog will also be added to your Reading List on your Blogger dashboard and this site will also show on your Friend Connect profile for all the sites you've joined using Friend Connect.

Warm Up. Work Out. Stretch.

Stretching is an important part of your workout. MayoClinic.com notes these benefits of stretching:

• Increases flexibility to make everything you do easier
• Increases range of motion to help prevent injuries
• Improves blood flow to your muscles
• Releases tension to relieve stress

Oh yes. I would add that it also feels so good.

But when should you stretch?

1. Before your warm-up
2. After your warm-up but before your workout
3. After your workout

If you chose number 3, after your workout, congratulations.

One mistake that many novices make (and experienced exercisers) is to stretch while the muscles are cold. When the muscles are not warmed up, they cannot relax and lengthen. If you try to pull a rubber band beyond its limits, it can snap. You increase the risk that the same thing will happen to your muscles if you try to stretch them out when they are less flexible from being cold. When the muscles have lots of blood flowing in them and are warmed up, they stretch more easily, and you'll get the maximum benefit from your stretching.

It's a myth that you need to stretch before you work out. In fact, some studies have shown that stretching before a physical activity can actually decrease performance.

How should you structure your workouts?

Before your workout. Warm your muscles up with five to 10 minutes of aerobic activity like riding a stationary bike or running on a treadmill before lifting weights. Any aerobic activity is fine. Work to get your heart rate up to a good training level. Almost all the cardio machines at the gym have guides on them showing 65% and 85% of your maximum heart rate based upon your age. Anywhere between these two is fine.

If I don't warm up before my workouts, I feel an injury threatening to come on every time. I especially feel the strain in my shoulder joints. Get your blood flowing to prevent injury.

On days when I do cardio, I do the cardio before my weights. If you choose, you can do a quick warm-up, do your weights and then do your cardio afterwards. I like the first option. To me, it saves a little time, and it seems silly not to do the whole thing since I'm on the machine anyway.

After your warm-up. Now you can move to your weight exercises. The muscles have lots of blood flowing in them, and they are ready to go.

After your workout. When you're finished, be sure to stretch while the muscles are still warm. Don't wait.

Here are some tips for getting the maximum benefit from your stretching while preventing injury.

Never bounce. When you stretch, you are working to relax and lengthen one muscle while the opposing muscle naturally contracts. For example, when you stretch the hamstring on the back of your thigh, the quadriceps on the front of your thigh contracts. Any quick motion and you'll be trying to stretch a muscle in the middle of a contraction. Remember that rubber band that snapped? Ouch! Once you pull that muscle, it could take weeks or even months to heal. And in the interim, you'll have to limit your activities. No fun!

Relax. Focus on the muscle you're stretching. Hold the stretch for a count of 15 or 20. Focus on the muscle and try to relax it. You'll find that as it relaxes you will be able to keep stretching it farther.

Exhale. Believe it or not, breathing helps you stretch. Exhale as you relax and stretch the muscle. You'll be amazed at the difference it makes in your ability to stretch the muscle when you exhale.

Lengthen the muscle. Try to fully extend whatever muscle you're stretching. Let's say you're stretching your hamstring muscles. You have both legs extended on the floor and you are gently hanging your body over your legs. Think about pushing the back of the knee all the way to the floor and making your leg as long as possible. At the same time, imagine the chest reaching toward your knees and your head beyond your knees. Keep breathing and relaxing. Try this stretch with the toes pointed and the toes flexed to feel the difference.

So forget the stretching before your workout. Warm up. Work out. Stretch. Ahh!

"Don't forget to breathe."

"Don't forget to breathe." That's what my ballet teachers are always reminding me.

The same holds true in strength training. When you are exerting yourself and focused intently on your lift, you may sometimes hold your breath. Never do this again. Learn to breathe during your exercise. Holding your breath can cause your blood pressure to rise rapidly and dangerously.

Mayo Clinic emeritus hypertension specialist Sheldon G. Sheps, M.D., notes that physicians used to tell patients with high blood pressure not to lift weights. Now they have found that if done properly, weight lifting can actually help lower blood pressure over the long term. (Sheps, 2007)

What is the effect of weight lifting on blood pressure? According to Richard Weil at MedicineNet.com, "...in a recent analysis of multiple studies (called a meta-analysis) involving 320 male and female adults, resistance-training programs produced significant decreases in resting systolic (the top number) and diastolic (the bottom number) blood pressure. The decreases were equivalent to reductions of approximately 2% and 4%, respectively." (2007)

Just one more piece of evidence that strength training is good for you in more ways than you had ever imagined.

If you have high blood pressure (or even if you don't), here are some great tips from Dr. Sheps on the MayoClinic.com website:

• Learn and use proper form when lifting to reduce the risk of injury.
• Don't hold your breath. Holding your breath during exertion can cause dangerous spikes in blood pressure. Instead, breathe easily and continuously during each lift.
• Lift lighter weights and do more repetitions. Heavier weights require more strain, which causes a greater increase in blood pressure. You can challenge your muscles with lighter weights by increasing your repetitions.
• Listen to your body. Stop your activity right away if you become severely out of breath or dizzy or if you experience chest pain or pressure.

(Source: "Weightlifting: Bad for your blood pressure?" Dec. 20, 2007. MayoClinic.com.)

Consciously think about your breathing as you do your exercises. Exhale on the exertion. Inhale on the return. Not only will you make your workout safer, you'll also be getting essential oxygen into your system and to your working muscles.

Reps and Sets Revealed

At the gym, you're likely to see someone running around from exercise to exercise like a chicken with his head cut off while some body-builder type spends an hour doing the same exercise over and over. Which approach is better? What do you need to do to get the most from your workout?

If you are a complete gym novice, take heart. You'll have it all explained for you here.

Reps refers to repetitions or the number of times you perform an exercise. If you then take a short break and repeat the exercise, each group of repetitions is a set. That's easy enough.

How many reps and how many sets should you do? Like most aspects of strength training, it depends on your goals and the amount of time you have. Let's look at some general guidelines.

If your goal is to get big muscles, you need to use enough weight so that you can only perform five to seven reps of an exercise before you can no longer keep good form or lift the weight. The latter is referred to as exercising to the point of failure. The last thing most women want to do, including me, is to develop big, bulky muscles. If you fall into this category, read on.

If you want to develop strong, toned, lean and well-defined muscles, you should use enough weight so that you can perform eight to 12 reps of your exercise before failure. When you can do 12 reps in each of your sets, it's time to increase your weights.

This leads to the obvious question, "How many sets do I need to do?" The general guideline is that the optimal number of sets is anywhere between two and five. If you only do one set, you are not working the muscles effectively. Remember, you are trying to push them beyond what what is needed to weed your garden or pick up a laundry basket. Beyond five sets, you start to experience the law of diminishing returns. It's OK for body builders with specific goals to do lots of sets, but for the rest of us, it's really just a waste of time.

Start out slowly. You may want to start with two sets at first and increase to three or more as you build strength. The more sets you do, the more you work the muscles to increase strength. I used to do a lot of exercises but only two sets of each. When I doubled my sets to four, I noticed a dramatic increase in muscle strength and definition. I may switch this around for variety and do three sets and more exercises or five sets and fewer exercises sometimes.

Variety is good. At some point, if you do the same thing over and over, your muscles get too accustomed to the activity and they no longer need to work as hard. You stop seeing improvement Change things up.

Finally, you need to consider the break between sets. Too many people start wandering around, chatting with their gym friends or playing with their iPods between sets. If you give the muscles too long a break, the next set will not give you any added benefit. It's like you're doing the first set again. You need to build on each set. That said, you should take no longer than a 30-second break between sets. You will not only work your muscles much harder much faster, but you'll also be building up your endurance.

Keep in mind, if you do lots of sets with little or no break between sets, you may not be able to lift as much weight. That's good. It means you are working your muscles efficiently and effectively. The number of pounds you lift is irrelevant. What matters is that you are making the muscles work harder than they are used to.

Don't be impressed by the guys at the gym pumping 80-pound dumbbells. They are the dumbbells. They usually don't use good form, can't control the weights and take a five-minute break between sets. Sure they get big muscles...eventually. They also usually spend long hours at the gym when they could get the same results in half the time.

If you're like me, you like to get in, work out hard and get out.

How Much is Enough?

Do you have to go to the gym every day to get into great shape? Absolutely not.

How many days a week you go to the gym depends upon your goals, your available time and your personal preference.

What are your goals? If you want to get fit and maintain that level of fitness, you can do strength training as little as twice a week. If you want to really improve your strength and feel better than ever, shoot for three to five times a week. If your goal is to make strength training an integral part of your life, you may want to go to the gym six times a week, or even every day if you mix up your workouts enough.

Of course, you can supplement gym workouts with other healthy activities that you enjoy. As an example, here's what I do. I generally go to the gym four to five times a week. Once or twice a week I may opt to work out in the fitness room in my apartment building. I generally focus on cardio and core on these days since the weights in the fitness room are minimal, at best. Once a week, I take an hour and a half ballet class. Ballet is great for core strength, stamina, flexibility, speed, coordination and grace; sometimes it can even be quite an aerobic workout.

Before you decide to go to the gym every day, you need to consider some additional important points.

Never work the same muscle groups two days in a row. You don't actually build muscle while you're lifting weights. What happens is that as you stress the muscle, it breaks down at the cellular level, which starts a process in which the muscle begins to repair and strengthen itself. The muscle needs up to 48 hours to complete this process. You're actually strengthening the muscle in the time between workouts, not at the gym. If you work the muscle while it's in the process of repairing itself, you start breaking down the muscle fiber before it's had a chance to rebuild and strengthen, thus losing the benefit of your previous workout. It's also easier to injure yourself. Don't do it.

Work different muscle groups on different days. If you only go the gym a couple of times a week, you can work all your major muscle groups during your workout: chest, back, shoulders, arms, legs, core (abdominal muscles and lower back). This strategy can make for a long workout session. But, if it fits your schedule better, then, by all means, do it this way.

A better option may be to split your workouts. I generally do my upper-body workout on one day (about 10 to 14 different exercises). This always includes a five-minute cardio warm-up to get the blood flowing to my muscles. I find this absolutely essential, especially as I've gotten older. On alternate days, I focus on cardio, core and lower body. I do many fewer exercises for lower body and core since there just aren't as many options or as many different muscle groups as in the upper body. The lower body/core workout, even with 20 to 25 minutes of cardio, still usually takes slightly less time than the upper body workout. In general, I spend about an hour and fifteen minutes to about an hour and a half working out. This includes about 10 minutes of stretching, at the end of my workout. (That's a topic I'll tackle on another day.)

If you're just getting started, you may want to start slowly. Regular strength training is a lifestyle change, not a temporary fix. Give yourself time to build strength and confidence, and to rest. Make it enjoyable and rewarding so that you will want to keep doing it the rest of your life.