Both Freddy and I are still feeling sick, although today we feel a lot better. Hopefully by tomorrow we will both be back to normal.

Because we were both not up for a workout, we thought we would take this time to go through some of the most common FAQ’s that people ask in the comments. I hope that this video helps – especially for you newbies to the site.

Just to let you guys know we have started the official BodyRock.Tv facebook page – you can find it by clicking here. We have been posting little updates on what’s going on with us there in between our regular updates here on BodyRock.Tv

Hold your thumbs for me (that’s the Czech way) and keep your fingers crossed for Freddy to get over this cold by tomorrow :)

Best,

Zuzana

But the overwhelming focus when it comes to productivity posts online has to do with knowledge work, with people sitting in front of a computer, being endlessly distracted by the millions of things that pop up on a screen in a typical day, and how to get past them.

Procrastination and Working Out

One area that can use some more attention, then, is how to migrate some of these wonderful tips over to the world of fitness — how to get off our asses and working out every day.

With that in mind, we’re going to look at a few things over the course of several articles. Here’s just a sampling:

1. Why fitness procrastination happens
2. The practical consequences of putting off working out
3. Being perfectionists about fitness
4. Super-easy strategies to break through the bad habits
5. Ways to maintain a routine after you’ve re-started it

A Few Tips to Get You Started

Break it into small steps. The oldest adage in the procrastination-fighting handbook, it’s been proven time and time again that breaking down larger tasks that your brain is resisting, into smaller, more do-able tasks you can work through one-by-one is the best way to get stuff done.

With exercise, this is no different — instead of going to the gym and taking hours out of your day, break your exercise down into smaller, more frequent workouts that you can more easily tackle. Zuzana’s workouts, conveniently, are a great example of these ;)

Eliminate the ‘should’. We’ve said many times before that knowing you should exercise is not motivation enough to do it, day-in and day-out. You need something beyond that, something that answers the question Why Do You Exercise better than just “because it’s what they say I should be doing.” Read that article for some ideas.

More From Our Readers

To start off this new series, we want to hear more from you — give us some of your best strategies for fighting procrastination when it comes to exercise, and we’ll take the three best ones and highlight them in further articles. We’ve said it before — you guys are a huge reason to keep writing and exploring issues on the site, and being able to sit down and think about your questions in detail, and then continue to conversation, is a huge thrill for both of us.

We’ve been reading some studies about how unconscious gender roles have big real-world effects:  one study had mothers discussing their daughters’ school results, and saying things like “I was never good in math, either.” OK — sounds like standard empathy from a parent to a child.

But the study found that these kind of statements reinforced certain gender norms, especially ones that tend to steer some girls away from subjects like math and science. While there are certainly lots of variables at play here, we think there really is something to these claims.

And that begs the question — is the same thing going on with fitness?

YOU’D BE SURPRISED AT HOW OFTEN WE DEAL WITH THIS.

This is an interesting topic, and one we feel quite qualified to talk about, as we get dozens of comments — both on our blog and on our YouTube channel — saying things like “I think it’s gross that a woman is stronger than a man,” or “why would I want a woman who is stronger than me?”

That’s why, in our recent article, we tried to get inside the head of a typical guy who holds those ‘strong women just aren’t sexy’ views. Hopefully, we showed you how both insecurity and an outdated sense of the ‘official’ male role underlie those opinions.

Now we want to talk a little bit about the female side of things — and how those same expectations can crop up — even without direct input from anyone else.

Think of it as a form of self-censorship, a way of ‘holding back’ on your true physical potential because of expectations you might not even consciously acknowledge — but expectations that are there, regardless.

HOW DO WOMEN HOLD THEMSELVES BACK?

It’s a given that mental focus and strength is crucial to getting in shape and staying fit. Every day and every workout require mental dedication — our bodies don’t just automatically expend a ton of energy unless we really know how to force them to.

But what if women have to fight with something subconscious, nearly imperceptible — a little voice that suggests they shouldn’t get too strong, or work out too hard, because it might make them less attractive to the opposite sex?

If you’ve ever tried to apply serious, concentrated dedication to anything — especially something physical, like sport at a high level — you’ll know that these kinds of psychological barriers can be absolutely deadly in reaching your goal.

So what can you do about it?

3 SIMPLE THINGS TO TRY.

Extend your independence to your body. Being confident and secure as a woman isn’t only a state of mind or an attitude — it’s also manifested in how you think about, treat, and use your own body. You get to make the decisions about how you’ll work out and get fit, and the rest of the world — well, they’ll catch up eventually. Don’t worry about them — don’t even think about them when starting a workout.

Look at who is reinforcing these rules. If you catch yourself lifting super-light weights and over-doing it on the cardio, even though you know good weightlifting will not bulk you up like a bodybuilder, stop and think about it. Why are you doing this? Who got these ideas into your head, and why are you adhering to them? Even just that simple level of self-analysis can be enough to overcome an unconscious bias.

Change your role models. It’s possible that the outside sources you look to for inspiration might not be helping. If you’re following celebrities who seem to have the ‘perfect’ body, really think about the resources that go into maintaining it. If Megan Fox or Jessica Alba suddenly decided to do a few more weight exercises, they’d literally have agents and studio executives telling them that any hint of lean muscle might cost them further parts. It’s a vicious circle.

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH IT?

We really want to hear from the women on this one — have you ever found yourself re-inforcing these gender norms, maybe without even realizing it at first? Or have you been able to overcome them, to get past the outdated expectations and push your body in the direction you want it to go? Tell us about it!

Best,

Frederick

We talk a lot about fitness on BodyRock, and lifestyle is a huge part of that. The better you live, the better you exercise — it’s all connected. And there’s no reason to exclude what goes on in the bedroom (or elsewhere) from that — so let’s talk about it!

We’ve heard, like you have, that fitness gives you amazing benefits between the sheets — that by exercising regularly, you’ll notice a serious improvement in both the quality of your sex life and your sex drive in particular.

It’s pretty difficult to find someone, married or single, committed or unattached, who doesn’t want this. Increased sex drive and better performance, especially for couples who have been together for a long time (but for anyone, really), is a great thing to have, and if it’s really true that exercise can do all these things — we want to know about it.

So: besides the anecdotal chatter about ‘bedroom gymnastics’ — does fitness really improve your sex life?

YES INDEED, IT MOST CERTAINLY DOES

The research out there confirms it, but not always in the way you’d expect. It’s a little less about the straight empirical benefits of exercise, and more about the great things that happen between your mind & body when you start working out.

Inevitably, the more you exercise, the more your body image improves. This counts for everyone — men and women alike. The better your workouts, the better the results, and the better your self-image. And if you feel really good about your body, it’s inevitable: you’re going to have better, more frequent sex. It just works.

But hang on — is it all about the mental connection? Well, no: not exactly. As you’re about to see, there are plenty of physical explanations as to why fitness equals great sex.

THE GOOD, PHYSICAL STUFF TOO

Endorphins. It’s a known fact that mood-improving endorphins get released when you work out, which pull down your stress levels (excellent for a kick-ass boudoir session) and also release those ever-important hormones into your bloodstream and up to your brain. So that increased desire for mind-blowing sex isn’t just confidence you’re feeling — it’s a natural high, too.

Your stamina gets better. While sex is about lots of things, being able to perform at a consistent level for a good amount of time makes it extremely enjoyable to both partners. When you’ve got the strong, consistent energy that comes from a high overall fitness level, it’s just far easier to have great sex.

Blood flow increases. Regular exercise means your body knows how to distribute blood more evenly and more efficiently — to every part of your body. That means more arousal for both sexes, and — as research shows — more consistent orgasms for women. That’s never, ever a bad thing.

You know your body more. If you spend a good amount of time exercising during the week, you’ll simply feel your body more. If you’re just starting out, ask anyone who works out regularly — being in full possession of our bodies is one of the best benefits of working out. Since sex is better when you can really sense yourself, it naturally follows that exercise is the best way to pull that off.

TAKE IT EASY

Before you rush to the bedroom and start tearing those clothes off, just keep one thing in mind — if you’re really going for it, and exercising to the absolute maximum of your capabilities, you might be too tired to have sex. If this becomes a pattern, especially after you’ve been working out for a while — change your routine.

Being too tired for sex, which is one of life’s great pleasures, is no good, and being consistently tired for it means you’re likely over-exercising. Make sure you draw a distinction between intense exercise, and excessive exercise.

Yep, we provide some pretty intense workouts on this site. Research proves they’re some of the best for improving your bedroom fun, as they work dozens of muscle groups and don’t drain all your energy reserves — but anything taken to a heavy, heavy extreme will have unforeseen consequences. So don’t overdo it, and in your pursuit of a great body, remember to stay sensible and keep your life balanced.

Best,

Frederick

It seems so obvious as to be clichéd — staying in shape and keeping active will help us live longer. And it’s usually phrased in such a way to seem incredible: exercise will literally add years to your life, as though things are already mapped out — just a few adjustments here and there, and it’s like you’ve ‘bought’ a few more years, somewhere in the future.

This kind of advice has become so normal, so rote, and so everyday as to have lost a lot of impact. In the same way that we can’t really scare smokers away by saying “those cigarettes take years off your life!”, it’s equally hard to do the same with exercise.

So what to do? Is there any hard, physical evidence that exercise really extends our lives, and can we get excited and inspired by it?

OF COURSE THERE IS, AND OF COURSE WE CAN!

Check this out: almost 17,000 Harvard alumni were studied over a massive period (16+ years). Never mind smoking, family history, hypertension or a host of other factors — nearly one third of the men who expended 2000 calories through some kind of exercise, per week, saw their mortality rates fall big-time. By the time these people hit 80, the study was able to say that 2+ years of additional life was directly attributable to exercise.

And just wait a second, ‘cause here comes another one: this found that ‘exercise capacity’ was the #1 way to predict mortality, no matter what the final cause of the actual death was. And the more exercise capacity each person had (this was another study involving 13,000 people), the far longer they lived — regardless of other factors.

Hold on, some more incredible numbers for you: alright, just one more study. In this one, ‘moderate activity’ (30 minutes of doing stuff, most days of the week) reduced mortality by 27%.

And ‘vigorous exercise’ (at least 20 great minutes, 3 times/week) reduced it by 32%. Even those who engaged in the ‘less than recommended’ levels lived longer. This went for everyone: smokers, overweight people, and people who watched several, several hours of TV per day.

OK, so those are some impressive numbers. But are they what’s really important? Sure they are, but while it’s fun to focus on adding years onto the ends of our lives, there’s something else even more crucial:

IT’S NOT JUST HOW LONG YOU LIVE, BUT HOW WELL.

Feel great during all those years. Sure, you’ll get 2+ years added onto the end of your life, but exercise will do amazing things for the rest of those years — you know, the ones where you’re living your life, right now, today.

Be happier. We all know how exercise releases endorphins which can give a serious boost to your mood, but until we get into a regular habit of fitness and exercise, it’s amazing how quickly we can forget. There’s a reason that people sometimes can’t help over-committing to a fitness program after a few sessions — the ‘high’ that results can have seriously great effects on your everyday feelings.

It’s easy for people to mix up cause & effect here — we often hear “I feel like crap (for some reason), so I’m not going to exercise.” Go out and do it no matter what, and you’ll realize ‘some reason’ was simply a lack of activity in the first place.

Do more things in a day. Another little paradox — the more energy you spend exercising (within reason, don’t over-train), the more energy you’ll have to do other things during the day. Being able to commit more energy to more things makes you feel like you have more control over your time — both today, and over the course of your whole life.

HOW ABOUT YOU?

Let’s start a great, inspiring conversation — we want your always-amazing answers to one of these questions:

#1) Do you know anyone who’s older, and still incredibly active?

#2) Give us one way that exercise has tangibly improved your life today, so that living longer also means living richer.

Best,

Frederick

People are always trying to get more skinny. It’s the main reason a lot of people start exercising — to lose weight, lose weight, and lose more weight. And no matter how much we lose, there’s always a little bit more to go. Especially for people relatively new to exercising, it’s extremely hard to reach a solid, happy level of satisfaction.

But should being skinny be the ultimate, actual goal of exercise, of any attempt to lose weight? Now, before we get into this question further, one thing we should say: there are people who are just naturally skinny. A lot of this depends on your body type and metabolism, which we’ve talked about elsewhere on the site.

But let’s go back to ‘getting skinny’ as a goal — although exercise will help you lose weight, there’s got to be a better direction than just ’skinny’. There are a few reasons why we think the whole focus needs to shift, and they drive everything we put on the site. Let’s talk about them.

WHY THE FOCUS SHOULD CHANGE TO ‘GETTING FIT’

Becoming skinny isn’t very realistic over the long term. Besides the fact that the whole process of losing enough weight to actually become fashion-model skinny is really difficult, maintaining it — while still eating well and having enough energy to live your life — is extremely hard.

Getting fit, on the other hand, is far more measurable — you can track your progress, see specific, satisfying changes to your body, and not be holding yourself up to an unrealistic standard.

That’s actually the most important thing — psychologically, it’s far easier to work towards getting fit than getting skinny. One is a specific goal that’s sustainable, the other is a societal idea that changes with the times and is famously elusive.

If your goal is simply ‘to be a skinny person’, you’ll always find ways to not measure up, no matter how skinny you might get. Fundamentally, it’s just not  realistic.

When you combine these two things — a realistic physical goal with something that’s actually easy to deal with, psychologically — you’ve got an unstoppable combination. As an overall direction, getting fit is infinitely preferable to getting skinny.

But besides that, there are tons of other benefits, too:

OTHER WAYS GETTING FIT CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Your full-body health. Trying hard to get skinny can have terrible effects on your body, because you likely won’t eat enough, nor will you get a balanced amount of exercise. When you switch your goal to simply ‘getting fit’, it’s much easier to concentrate on making your entire body healthy, and you go from counting and denying calories to something much more healthful, well-rounded, and holistic in approach.

Your everyday strength. This one is great, just because it’s something you might not consider beforehand — but getting fit makes you way stronger (not super-muscular, just stronger!). Those little things you need to do around the house, or anything involving physical strength — they become a huge pleasure when you’re in shape (or even just getting in shape). You’ll seriously enjoy being able to actually feel your body, and feel each muscle as you use them.

Your physical confidence. Connected to that is just the sheer physical confidence that comes from being in shape. It makes you feel grounded, more present, and more at home in your own skin.

Psychological rewards. It’s not just about the attainable psychological rewards of being in shape, but other, more chemical ones, too — nearly nothing about the mad drive to ‘get skinny’ will give you the natural, amazing high that strong exercise will, and it’s proven that you’ll feel way better pursuing a plan that concentrates on fitness rather than one just concerned with dropping the pounds.

TELL US YOUR STORIES

If you’ve made the ‘switch’ from ‘getting skinny’ to ‘getting fit’, we want to hear about it: what pushed you to it? What keeps you there, psychologically? What do you use to avoid the constant ’skinny’ push from popular culture, women’s magazines, or the fashion world? Tell us about it!

Best,

Frederick

Picture this — you strap a device to your arm, and do your workout. When you’re done, it automatically transmits all your workout data to your computer, where you can look over every little piece of information on how you did.

You get beautiful big charts chronicling how much weight you’ve lost, how much lean muscle you’ve built, how many calories you’ve blasted through in that last workout, and you can set big goals for yourself.

Sound crazy? Possibly — using just a little device to track something like lean muscle probably is several years away. But millions (yep, millions) of people are doing this on a lesser scale with the Nike+ system, and it’s worth checking out why it’s so popular.

Why Nike+ Makes People Want to Work Out

You’ve probably heard it of it, since it’s connected to Apple’s iPod, and has a hefty marketing push behind it — you put a little sensor in your shoe, attach a device to your iPod nano (or take your newer touch, iPhone 3GS, or Nike Sportband) and head out for a run.

The device tracks your distance, pace, time, and calories burned, and lets you upload everything into a centralized database at the end, where you can compare your runs to other people, run challenges against your friends, setup customized training programs, and get rewards for hitting your exercise goals.

The Nike+ system really is one of the biggest recent changes in how a huge number of people interact with their fitness, and it’s part of a larger trend, in which recent advances in technology allow us to measure aspects of our lives like never before. Wired magazine recently did a piece on it, and it got us seriously thinking about this whole idea in general.

So we decided to give you five easy reasons why personal metrics — the idea of measuring your effort — can get you motivated to exercise like nothing else.

#5: Five is the magic number.

Wired quotes a Nike exec as saying “once [people] hit five runs, they’re massively more likely to keep running and uploading data.” It turns out five really is the magic number, as something in our brains gets us almost addicted to the amazing level of feedback this information can bring.

Once we see that many runs accumulated, it actually becomes difficult to stop exercising. But here’s the real question — can you do the same for the more intense exercises, like the ones we have here on the site? Can we move past just running?

Sure you can — while you might not get the same gratifying feedback that comes from the nearly-automatic Nike+ site, keeping a solid table of your workouts (and using something like an interval timer’s data) can work wonders. Combine it with a photo, taken at the same angle, in the same place, every day, and you’ll have an incredible narrative of your transformation.

#4: Post-Exercise Takes on a Whole Different Meaning.

Getting in a good routine post-workout strangely becomes just as enjoyable as some of the workouts themselves. When you have a system in place that lets you keep track of everything, sitting down after exercise, and taking a photo become crucial feedback loops that keep you on track.

Instead of just cooling down with a towel and some water, you’re keeping personal measurements that you can go back and look at — amazing for any time your motivation is flagging.

#3: Tiny measurements and miniscule increments make a huge impact.

Even though it seems rather small, each little measurement has a serious impact on your exercise. If you calculate that you ‘only’ burned 200 calories during your last workout, it might not seem like that much — but if you do that four, five, even six times a week, those tiny measurements all become steps forward, towards the bigger goal.

Remember, no one single workout will change your body overnight — every single exercise session is as important as the one before it and the one after it. What matters is actually doing it, and personal metrics can truly help you when you just don’t feel like it.

#2: Accumulation Over Time Makes a Big Difference.

Again, it’s those little increments that make a big impact — when you add up one month’s worth of workouts and see your ‘totals’: total hours, total calories, total weight lost, total amounts of repetitions — and so on — those combined numbers have a huge impact.

That’s partly why Nike suggests that five is that magic number — once you go for five 30-minute runs, you’ve probably burned over 2000 calories, and just seeing that accumulated on a graph does something to our brains that no individual workout or weigh-in or measurement ever can.

#1: Everyone Loves a Good Story.

It’s a natural human inclination — we love a good story, and we’re naturally hard-wired to respond to things with a beginning, middle, and end. We know a presentation that’s full of boring examples and empty platitudes will probably put you to sleep, while one that tells a thrilling little story, with interesting characters and big ups and downs, all coming together at the end in a great resolution — that’s the one that keeps you interested.

Same goes for your exercise — stats are just stats, but when you put them down in a journal, and next to those stats are photos of you, each day, getting more and more in shape, it automatically turns our feedback loops into a great story.

Whether you do this in a table in Excel, in a notebook, on a private blog, or whatever, it doesn’t matter — the important thing is doing it. Coincidentally, if you’re looking for a super-easy blogging platform for something like this, we suggest something ultra-simple, like posterous or tumblr.

These are micro-blogs, and you can keep them private, update them in seconds from your email inbox, phone, or browser, and attach photos to any post. Before you know it, you’ll have a permanent, exciting log of your body’s transformation.

What Are You Waiting For?

Whether it’s Nike+, or one of dozens of iPhone applications, or any of the other systems that let us measure the workouts we do — the potential of these metrics and personal measurement is amazing stuff.

So start simple — get a little blog going, and see what happens when you hit that magic number five — we know you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how well it keeps you motivated.

Best,

Frederick

Here’s an interesting story: a recent study found that it’s far better to be fit and overweight than to be simply thin.

The study found that women who didn’t do any exercise — including the slim ones — were far more at risk for heart attacks, while women with some extra pounds but a generally fit body (thanks to exercise) were less at risk.

Sounds pretty straightforward, then: exercise is important. We know that!

But wait, hold on — ‘cause here comes another study. It turns out those same women who exercise — but are still overweight or obese — are up to nine times as likely to develop diabetes as women of normal weight.

So just a second here — how can anyone possibly win? Think about that equation again:

If you’re overweight but ‘fit’ = you’re at higher risk for diabetes, no matter how much you exercise.

If you’re slim but not ‘fit’ = you’re at risk for a heart attack, no matter how much you diet.

Both of these studies make sense, when you think that diabetes is more closely linked to diet, and exercise is a crucial factor in cardiovascular health. And in the end, they don’t really tell us much we don’t already know, deep down: there are serious consequences to being inactive and/or overweight, so a solution that only targets one of those areas is — by definition — incomplete.

WHY DIET & EXERICSE CAN’T BE ‘ONE OR THE OTHER’.

Let’s think about this in another way.

Small amounts of calorie cutting here and there (let’s say 400 calories of excessive junk food per day) can make a big difference — while a commitment to burn 400 calories a day can be much harder to pull off.

But this is missing the larger point, which is that there is no clear equivalency between ‘cutting 400 calories out of my diet’ and ‘burning 400 calories through exercise’.

While studies have shown that cutting out fatty foods will help you lose some weight — while plain old exercise sometimes won’t, especially for women who ignore their diet entirely — it’s still a mistake to see the two areas as mutually exclusive.

Never forget that burning 400 calories through good, balanced exercise — like a great mix of lifting weights and intensive cardio — contains benefits that go far beyond just those 400 calories burned.

GETTING RID OF THE ‘CALORIE COUNTER’ IDEA.

The ‘calorie’ counter on modern treadmills and elliptical machines is actually a pretty deceptive thing: it creates too clear a connection between exercise and calorie loss, and that leads to faulty conclusions when it comes to food, too. If a proper counter were (hypothetically) available, it would display all the other things happening to your body when you exercise.

Think about it: you would strap a magic device to your arm, and then go do some interval training one day, and some weights the next. Then, the magic device would tell you all about your increased lung capacity, your conversion of fat into lean muscle, your burning of calories even after you stopped exercising — everything but a simple ‘calorie’ count (I’m sure they’re working on it).

And the same thing applies for our diets, too. Counting calories (or fat, or protein, or carbs) is always going to be important, but slavishly counting just those categories ignores the crucial fact that some calories (or fat/protein/carbs) are far better than others.

Instead of just eliminating excess calories, try replacing them with clean, whole foods. Rather than counting everything you’re eating and measuring exactly how much is going in, use that mental energy on healthy recipes, more effort while shopping, or preparing great, filling lunches to take to work.

Just as exercise does countless things for our body that a ‘calorie count’ won’t reveal, eating healthy does too. It gets impossible to track all the great things you’re putting in your body by eating lots of spinach, using high-quality fats (like extra-virgin olive oil), and replacing white rice with quinoa.

FORGET EITHER/OR: A HOLISTIC, BALANCED APPROACH IS BEST.

But the point is — it all works. It’s all part of the same approach: treating your body as a holistic system that needs good, healthy attention from all angles — not just crash diets or burn-out marathons, but gradual, sustained, and long-term attention to eating well and being active, at the same time.

There is no magic ratio between diet and exercise, and study after study continue to prove that you can’t reap the benefits of one without suffering the negatives of another. So don’t! Keep a cool head, and realize that changing your body is something you need to do responsibly. There is no ‘choice’ between diet or exercise, despite what some people tell you.

To be healthy, you can’t have one without the other. But there’s one big advantage: tackling both at once is completely complimentary — the better you eat, the more you’ll want to work out, and the better you work out, the better you’ll want to eat.

Best,

Frederick

The amount of women who simply never start any kind of weight training due to a fear of becoming ‘too muscular’ is far too big and widespread. So we’re here to figure out how this happened, why it’s expressly not the case that you’ll become a bodybuilder if you start lifting weights, and why, in fact, it’s fundamental to your exercise routine that you start doing so.

WHY ARE WEIGHTS SO FROWNED UPON BY SOME?

This is a pretty big question to answer, but it comes down to two interrelated things. One is a misconception about weights themselves, and the other runs along those ever-shifting gender lines.

First, the misconception: lifting weights is not a binary activity. It’s not all or nothing. There are a ton of different ways to go about doing it: there are varying levels of resistance, theories and philosophies on repetition, specific plans to greatly increase bulk muscle, to become lean, to get stronger without a huge change in physical appearance, and many more. Lifting weights is not simply about gaining muscles. Try your best to keep that thought out of your head as much as you possibly can.

Our second reason might explain why that’s easier said than done, though, especially for women. See, going to a gym is usually an nice experience, but even for a guy who just wants to ‘stay in shape’, the group of 6 thick-necked guys spotting each other at the bench press can be slightly intimidating. It’s precisely this culture that led to a rise in female-only, aerobic-focused classes, to the great disadvantage of women everywhere. Making weights a men-only thing has deprived millions of women from a weight-loss secret that can save countless hours in aerobic exercise.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with bodybuilding, but because it tends to rest near the extreme end of things, it has taken on certain characteristics that aren’t as pronounced in other sports. Sure, we might know a maniacal runner or aerobic exerciser who is insanely devoted, but it’s only the bodybuilders who manage to seemingly double their body weight and radically transform the way they look, grunting and sweating and going crazy over there, in the corner.

This creates a strange problem for some women — they really stand to benefit from everything that weight training offers, but get seriously deterred by the irritating, macho culture that pervades much bodybuilding.

WHAT WILL LIFTING WEIGHTS ACTUALLY DO FOR ME?

Lifting weights is an essential exercise. Aerobic training is fine, but if you compare the amount of effort, it’s simply far easier to lose weight through lifting some weights than it is doing hours and hours of aerobic exercise.

The key is in lean muscle. As you lift weights, you develop it. It’s not bulky, it’s not big, and it’s not the kind of muscle you’d find on a bodybuilder. Nope, this is the kind of muscle that burns calories to maintain itself, that continues to burn those calories long after your workout is over.

If you are doing aerobic exercise to burn fat, you are concentrating on just that — burning fat. It takes a hell of a lot of cardio to burn all the fat you probably want to burn, and when you’re at rest, your muscles — although they might have gotten a reasonably OK workout through 60 minutes of dancing around — simply won’t be doing all they can to help you burn more.

If you start lifting weights, your muscles will get a workout, not just your body in general. You’ll build that lean muscle, which not only looks great, but does so much more work for you when you aren’t working out.

Have you ever watched a marathon? There are many, many runners around the world who are able to run that amazing length — 42km — but still have, for example, a spare tire around their belly, or significant weight all over. How is this possible? How can all that running, all that training, not just cause the pounds to melt away?

Because they aren’t really building up their muscles. Now, before you think we’re negating an entire type of exercise, we should say: long-distance training, just like doing 2 hours of aerobic dance classes, does wonderful things for your body — don’t get us wrong.

Your base fitness level will get higher, you’ll burn calories, your lung capacity will be fantastic, and if that’s the route you choose to take, or you just love running and working out for long amounts of time, more power to you. Anything is better than the couch.

But — and it’s an important but — adding weights into your routine not only saves you the time drain of endless, repetitive cardio workouts, but it works many, many times faster than your normal cardio workout. Your muscles really will work while you eat, while you sleep, and even while you sit around (although your increased metabolism won’t allow for as much of that). It literally powers your fat loss into overdrive, and it’s why we focus so much on it here on the site. It’s time to get away from counting calories on a stairclimber and into a better, more well-rounded approach to your fitness.

WILL I LOOK LIKE A BODYBUILDER? (NO, YOU WON’T.)

This is a really unfortunate myth, and it’s one that has prevented a lot of women from getting the most out of their exercise.

It’s very difficult to break free of the idea that lifting weights — that doing any kind of resistance exercise — will create large, defined, bulky muscles. The fact is, your lean muscles will be more defined. But the keyword is lean muscle. There is a large difference between bulked-up muscle and lean muscle.

In order to look like a bodybuilder, you need to eat like a bodybuilder. You need to go on a very specific program that involves all sorts of complicated phases, where you eat specific foods in order to gain weight, and then do weeks of exercises in order to convert all that new bulk into muscle. It’s called bulking and cutting (or various other things — there’s lots of jargon).

On the other hand, building lean muscle is the act of making small, specific adjustments to your already-existing body, not doubling up its muscle mass. Tightening up, not bulking up — ensuring that your body works better, is stronger, leaner, and more toned.

When you start lifting weights, you also start losing weight, you build lean, attractive muscles (just look at Michelle Obama), and you blast your energy level through the roof. Every bite of food you have will feel earned, because you’ll be burning calories and building that lean muscle, 24/7.

ONE LAST THING ABOUT WOMEN, MUSCLES, AND MEN.

The last thing I want to mention takes us further into gender debates than the rest of what we’ve talked about, but that’s OK: I’ve often heard it expressed that many men simply don’t find ‘muscular’ women attractive.

I’ve also heard it expressed (from women) that because lifting weights (minus the cutting/bulking) is technically the same process that female bodybuilders use to become big, many women would rather take the aerobics route in order to avoid any risk of that ever happening, as though you could just wake up, overnight, with huge biceps. Nope — won’t happen.

Besides the fact that this silly preference among men is irrelevant, out-of-date, and rather sexist (it forces women to stick to some kind of standard of exercise that is supposed to keep them thin and beautiful but also soft and not too strong), it has contributed to this idea that the only proper exercise for losing weight or for getting in shape is aerobic — endless cardio, endless running, endless dance routines.

Forget about this.

First of all, unless you really, really start eating specific carb-heavy foods, you won’t see a huge difference in your muscle mass when you begin lifting weights. At first, it will only contribute to your weight loss, and help any general attempt to get into shape (there’s that lean muscle again).

And please: ignore the men who complain that they don’t like women who exercise like this, who lift weights, because it might give them the slightest hint of strength. They’re living in the 1950s.

Instead, take advantage of the huge benefits that lifting weights can give to you, watch how your weight loss will accelerate, you’ll feel better than ever, and you’ll actually start burning fat when you aren’t even working out. Bust out that resistance, super-charge your workout, and explode those old-fashioned myths. What are you waiting for?

Best,

Frederick