We always hear the same old training myth’s when it comes to female training:
“Weight training will make me look bulky”
“I don’t want to look like a man so i’ll just run on the treadmill”
“I just want to tone up”
“I’ll do high reps to burn off the fat”
The list goes on and on forever. I will soon be releasing a few e-books on the biggest myths in the fitness industry (that’s one of the reasons why the site is called Fitworldexposed). Today I will be explaining why women should be incorporating calisthenics into their program. It’s one simple reason that could really make a huge difference in a woman’s body physically and also change the way they think about training.
Bodyweight training exercises such as Push-up’s, Pull-up’s, Dips, Planks, Inverted Rows and other exercises look a lot less intimidating to woman.
I know you are thinking, “What the hell is he talking about?”, but let me explain. Many women never attack a bench press or squat and other weight training exercise because they fear that they will get bulkier which is probably the biggest myth in fitness if I had to only pick one. Lifting heavy weights actually burns more calories and builds muscle faster and more effectively than treadmills and other low intensity machines.
That’s also the key word that women are scared of “Muscles”. Women like to link the word muscle to masculinity, but the truth is that women should not be scared of getting more muscular. So as a result of all of the myths, we have women all around the world who are scared to even touch a heavy weight. It’s like some women are strong, but just aren’t willing to push themselves on the weighted exercises.
Back to the calisthenics statement above, I think that women would really benefit from calisthenics because they won’t be as scared to attack exercises like Push-ups, Pull-ups, planks, dips and other bodyweight exercises because there is no weight. In calisthenics, you are the weight. I also doubt that women are scared of themselves so it would be a great way for women to get results and increase the intensity without always second guessing what they are doing. Then when they see that they are getting great results with the bodyweight exercises, they will finally understand that weights aren’t evil and that women who lift weights don’t look like men. A lot of it also has to do with your diet, if you aren’t eating a lot then you won’t gain weight, it’s as simple as that.
The funny thing is that women wouldn’t even be able to look like men even if they tried 10 times harder, it’s just physically impossible. Men have higher testosterone levels, it’s not good or bad, but just the way it is. On top of that, everybody should be able to perform basic exercises like dips, push-ups and pull-ups before even focusing on weights anyways. You have to build some sort of foundation and if you just start off your first year of training with exercises like the bench press when you can’t do a proper push-up then it defeats the purpose. Focus on the fundamentals and then you can advance to other methods.
Conclusion:
Let’s throw all of the myths about female training out of the window and for all you women out there, start working out with more intensity, you won’t get “bulky”, I promise you.
If you are confused about which bodyweight exercises you should be doing, focus on the basics like Push-ups, inverted rows, Pull-ups, Bar dips, plank variations, hip thrusts, sprints and others. Don’t be scared to train hard, embrace the challenges and the results will be great.