Which came first - the chicken or the egg? It's the same for this myth. Is your back/knee/shoulder pain because you don't weight train? Once a doctor has given the all clear and confirmed that any pain is not due to musculoskeletal or neurological injury, it's not uncommon to find that after a few weeks of corrective weight training chronic aches and pains start to disappear. The body is an amazing machine - far more complex than any automobile. To run at optimum efficiency, it needs to have all its parts working in balance. By balance, I mean our muscles (which are generally arranged in opposing pairs on either side of a skeletal joint) need to be equally toned. If muscles on one side of a joint are stronger than those found on the opposite side, a dysfunctional joint will develop and pain may well be the result. Many of our day to day tasks are unidirectional requiring the use of muscles on one side of a joint only. This means that within a pair, one muscle maybe stronger than the muscle that opposes it.
With prescribed weight training exercises, we can rebalance the muscles on either side of a joint and return that joint to full function. Strengthening the lower back can cure lower back pain, strengthening the muscles of the thigh (the quadriceps and hamstrings) can prevent knee pain, strengthening the muscles of the upper back can improve posture and prevent neck pain.
Some time ago, I had an email personal training client. The deal was I would write a programme and the client would take it to her local gym and the resident instructor would then teach her the exercises. This client was suffering from some lower back pain which had been attributed to muscle weakness so we agreed that she needed to improve the strength of her back and I prescribed dead lifts. The instructor, on hearing about the clients' bad back removed the dead lifts from her programme and replaced this great exercise with the leg curl machine. Needless to say, when I heard about this I was aggrieved! What the instructor failed to realise was the client had 3 growing children who regularly needed to be picked up and carried and she needed to prepare her back for the rigours of this frequent occurrence and the fact the kids were getting heavier all the time! She NEEDED to dead lift! Weak muscles shouldn't be favoured or ignored but challenged so that they cease to be weak.
Before undertaking any new exercise programme, always consult your doctor and seek professional instruction as faulty exercise technique can result in serious injury.
👉 Introduction : Women, Weight and Weight Training
👉 Myth number 1) Strength training will cause big, bulky muscles and make woman look masculine.
👉 Myth number 2) To lose weight, I need to do lots of cardio.
👉 Myth number 3) To tone up I need to do lots of reps with a light weight.
👉 Myth number 4) Free weights for men, machines for women.
👉 Myth number 5) Muscle turns to fat when you stop training - I don't want that to happen to me!
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Myth number 6) Strength training makes muscles short and bulky - I want
long slender muscles like a dancer so I do yoga instead.
👉 Myth number 7) Strength training just takes too long and I have to go too often - I don't have time!
👉 Myth 8) I can't strength train because I have back/knees/shoulder pain.
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