Benefits and considerations of strength training

Just a quick blog post to remind or educate on some of the benefits and considerations when it comes to strength training for women.

Hormonal health:

• Strength training overall can help with reducing excessive levels of cortisol and estrogen. This could lead to a reduction in symptoms such as anxiety, stress, weight gain, mood swings, headaches, fatigue, heavy menstrual bleeding, PMS. It can cause improvements such as lowered resting heart rate and lowered blood pressure 

Sleep:

• Consider training in the morning over the night time and especially avoid training in the 2 hours before bed time. Strength training will temporarily increase the hormone cortisol as it’s supposed to and if you’re exercising too close to bed time it will be very hard to wind down. 

Bone and muscle health:

• Bone is like a diamond, the more pressure is placed on it the more it grows and develops. In order to maintain and grow bone strength it needs load and pressure, so strength training is a fantastic way to do this. Muscle acts in a similar way. Each time you complete a strength training session there will be micro tears in the muscle. Over the next couple of days that muscle will heal and become stronger each time. That’s why people feel sore after a weights session, also known as DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness)- it’s all part of the process! 

Weight loss:

• Strength training specifically in the lower body has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity and glucose metabolism. This can significantly help with weight loss.