Ladewski David Kirschen and William Smith - Strength Training Bible for Women

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For most of the athletes and clients Ive worked with, strength training comes along with plenty of ancillary benefits, including improved health, peace of mind, and better self-esteem.

Aside from improvements in physical strength and appearance, people who strength train regularly tend to notice a reduction in stress across other areas of their lives. Every day Im in the gym, I see people start their training sessions stressed and on edge. Within an hour, they are feeling relaxed and refreshed, ready to take on whatever challenge comes next. Theres just something about physical exertion that seems to act as a release valve when the pressures of daily life start to build up.

Strength training is also one of the best confidence builders youll ever experience. Unlike most pursuits in life, which tend to be subjective, lifting weights is the ultimate meritocracy. Either you can lift the weight or you cant, and any improvement in a lift, even if its only 5 pounds, represents a goal that you accomplished by yourself.

Lifting a weight that may have seemed immovable just months ago is a feeling that you have to experience to really understand. After breaking a milestone personal record, especially one that you previously thought out of reach, you will feel like you can do anything.

For me, I strength train because I like it. I train because its what I do, and I cant imagine not doing it. For me, its the process, not just the result, that keeps me in it year after year. One of the more popular expressions in strength sports is that lifting is a marathon, not a sprint, meaning if youre going to get involved, be prepared to be in it for the long haul. Not everyone who picks up a barbell will get bitten by the strength bug, but those who do rarely ever look back.

Strength training has been the single most constant entity in my life since I was in junior high school. My training has out-lasted countless relationships, career changes, and friendships. Its been my consolation through the darkest times of my life, and has been the focal point of some of my fondest memories.

Now that I have a family to take care of, lifting weights is no longer the center of my universe as it was when I was a teenager, but I would argue that my training is now even more important than its ever been. I no longer train with the sole purpose of getting bigger and stronger. Today, I train and compete because its the one thing I do just for me. I no longer look at my goals as my reason for training; I look at them as my excuse.

REPLACE FEAR WITH FOCUS

From a female perspective, I understand the fear of being in the mens section of the gym. Barbells, weights, loud noises, big exercises, and big scary men showing offit can be easy to feel scared and intimidated, as if all eyes are on you. Heres a newsflash: theyre not. Its not always easy, but try to shift your focus; work to get over your fear of what people are thinking of you. Your time at the gym is your own, so use that space to focus on your training, and just keep striving to push your progress to the next level.

Julia L.

After breaking a milestone personal record, especially one that you previously thought out of reach, you will feel like you can do anything.

TRAIN HARD

Your training is one of only a few things you have control over in your life.

Training goes so much deeper than the basic physical changes that occur in your body over months and years. I have seen time and again how training affects women on a psychological level. When a woman learns how to push her body to perform physical feats beyond what she ever thought herself capable, she reaches a level of confidence and empowerment that transcends many other things.

When you accomplish something you never thought possible, how does that make you feel? Think about it: getting the job you thought was out of reach; publishing that book youve always wanted to write; finishing that one task that has been on your to-do list for months. Achieving something you never thought possible makes you feelinvincible. Confident. Capable. Ready to take on the next task or challenge that comes your way.

Training is the same way; often times, we catch these glimpses week after week as we progress through a program. Each step, each progression, each new accomplishment builds us up. When you add in the aspect of getting physically stronger, the result is the creation of an unstoppable force. Physical strength can and does match mental strength.

Each day, we make the choice whether or not to train. We decide how hard to push ourselves, how heavy to lift, how much mental work to put into it. Its up to us, and its a lot of responsibility. We often dont have control over what our boss says to us, or what happens at our kids school, or the weather, traffic, illness, and stress. But we can control our training. The work we put in, the intensity and the passion with which we approach giving it everything weve gotthat is in our control. And by taking control of our physical development, we take control of a lot of things in other areas of our lives.

Julia L.

STRENGTH TRAINING VERSUS BODYBUILDING

For those of you who have never weight trained seriously before, terms like bodybuilding, weight lifting, strength training, strongman, powerlifting, and working out tend to be used interchangeably. While all of these disciplines use resistance training to achieve the desired result, they actually have very different definitions.

For example, powerlifting and weight lifting are similar, but unique sports, where the athletes compete to lift the most weight in their respective barbell lifts. Strongman is also a unique sport, where the lifts are more varied and tend to involve odd implements, like kegs, cars, logs, and stones.

Bodybuilding /Physique is a competitive sport as well, but there is no athletic component to the actual competition. While bodybuilders do lift weights to achieve the desired results, the actual bodybuilding competition is closer to a pageant than a sporting competition. Bodybuilders are judged on their balance of muscle size, symmetry, and definition. The difference between bodybuilding and other strength sports could be likened to the difference between an auto race and a car show.