Weight Training For Women Over 50
Dumbbells: Dumbbells are the most popular and common type of weight training exercise for both females and males. These little iron pieces tone up shoulder and arm muscles and if you do dumbbells with squats your leg muscles are sure to strengthen. If you are just beginning with weight training, don't rush for the heaviest looking dumbbell. You know your strength therefore pick the dumbbell that you think you can comfortably pick. Gradually increase the dumbbell weights until you feel is your limit.
Deadlifts: It is quite an effective technique of weight training for women. Draglifts include bench press, squats and lifting of weights. Deadlifts mean lifting the weights direct from the ground in the bent over position. It is not a child's play and thus professional guidance and some experience is needed. Being a total test of strength, doing it all of a sudden can jerk your neck and back and cause damage.
Bent over barbell rows: This exercise is a true test of strength and must be included in the weight training for women program. The equipment used in this exercise is a barbell and mainly tones your middle back. Barbell is almost like an enlarged form of a dumbbell and lifting them may appear daunting at first. This difficult exercise can be made simple if done under able guidance of the experts and careful weight selection. Also, lifting any kind of weight should be done slowly and gradually. Don't rush through it as one mistake can result in long term troubles.
Lunges: Lunges is a strength training exercise and not weight training exercise. When combined with dumbbells it becomes both strength and weight building exercise. All you have to do is grab an appropriate dumbbell, put your one foot forward and bend, keeping the other leg in its position. Change your leg simultaneously and keep repeating this for a few rounds. This is an easy exercise and also a really good one for weight training for women. This exercise is great for lower back, legs and butts. Dumbbells tone up the arms beautifully.
Here are few things you must keep in mind before starting the weight training for women:
Before you start with the weight training program make it sure you do adequate warm-up exercises. This is because the muscles get heated up and prepared for lifting weights and thus prevents injuries.
Change your weight training exercises in every couple of weeks. This is to prevent your body get conditioned to few exercises only and so that all parts of the body can be toned evenly.
Rest is as important as the workout. Therefore take regular breaks and indulge in fun games and activities. This will revive your body so that it oozes with energy to do the exercises well. Execss of weight training for women is as bad as not doing the weight training!