Home » Workouts for girls » Workouts in the gym for weight loss, designed for girls
Will working out in the gym help girls lose weight? This is a completely logical question asked by many girls who want to get rid of those annoying pounds. There is a fear of spoiling your figure with muscle structures, damaging your health, and losing your femininity. Many fears may be justified if such an event is approached without taking into account the basic principles. A properly developed training program in the gym for weight loss for girls will not only help eliminate the weight problem, but, on the contrary, can increase attractiveness by creating an athletic figure. It is important to use the services of professionals in good gyms, where training will be strictly individual.
Weight loss workouts will help you achieve a slim, toned figure
Hormones
Women produce significantly less testosterone than men, a hormone responsible for increasing muscle mass . Even when actively training, representatives of the fair sex will not be able to quickly build muscle and should not be afraid of excessive muscle hypertrophy. By doing basic exercises, using dumbbells and gradually increasing the weight of the apparatus, women will tighten their muscles, create relief and achieve an ideal figure, while remaining feminine: the appearance of pumped-up muscles does not threaten them.
The general testosterone norm for men ranges from 345 to 950 ng/dl, in women the levels are several times lower - from 15 to 70 ng/dl.
The level of women's capabilities in strength training is lower than men's. Due to the reduced amount of norepinephrine, women are unable to train to the point of muscle failure when performing an exercise . They always finish the set a few reps early.
The formation of adipose tissue and its distribution throughout the female body is influenced by estrogens, synthesized in sufficient quantities in the body. The effect of training is achieved only in case of hormonal balance. Both insufficient and excessive amounts of female sex hormones lead to excess weight, regardless of physical activity.
Why you should choose training for all muscle groups
Many trainers advise beginners to work out their muscles by following a split program. It consists of working exclusively one or two muscle groups. But, others dispute this technique, believing that it is intended for professionals. Explaining this by the fact that it is difficult for beginners to focus on any one muscle group. For women beginners, the best option would be training that will work all muscle groups in one session.
The video shows a training program for girls in the gym
For those girls who sometimes miss classes due to work, this option will also be much more convenient. This is due to the fact that by increasing the interval between work on one of the muscle groups, efficiency decreases. In addition, due to the characteristics of the body, girls do not have the opportunity to exercise at full capacity during the menstrual cycle. Accordingly, some muscle groups that will be trained during this period will be worked out poorly.
Find out how long it takes to pump up in the gym by reading the corresponding article on our website.
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Advice! According to the arguments given, it is best for girls to choose a training program, performing basic exercises and weights on the whole body. This will give more effect.
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Cyclic features
A healthy female body works like a clock, in accordance with a strict cyclical regime. To achieve maximum results from your training, it is important to rely on your menstrual cycle when distributing your training load.
- It is advisable to carry out active strength training in the first 2 weeks of the cycle. The follicular phase is the optimal time to increase the load and level of difficulty of exercise. During this period, women are the most resilient, tolerate pain more easily, and fat deposits melt before our eyes due to the rapid burning of carbohydrates.
- The highest muscle strength and physical limits are observed during ovulation. Nutrients are used most efficiently these days. The ovulatory phase is suitable for peak sports loads (if pregnancy is not planned).
- During the luteal phase, the female body switches to energy storage mode. Fatigue gradually increases, the risk of injury increases, and the intensity of training decreases. Abdominal exercises and pumping leg muscles become ineffective. The emphasis is shifting to cardio training. If you don’t have the strength, you shouldn’t try too hard: you need to train to the best of your ability.
- Menstruation is a time when the body cannot cope with excessive stress. You can give yourself a little break. If you do not want to stop sports activities these days, it is better to give preference to gentle fitness, yoga and the pool.
A study by German scientists has proven that reducing the intensity of training during the luteal phase helps women in the follicular phase, after resuming their usual activities, increase endurance by more than 30%.
The principle of load progression
The essence of the progression of loads is that from time to time the workouts gradually become more difficult: the weights gradually increase, the number of repetitions or approaches increases, and the intensity increases.
This helps the body stay in good shape. A common mistake women make is the fear of overworking in the gym, fear of physical activity . Having selected the optimal intensity of sports activities from their point of view, the ladies record it and repeat it from training to training. Lack of changes leads to adaptation of the body, addiction of muscles and lack of progress.
The basic principle of successful training: the load must increase. For results, it is important to move forward.
Stages of training
One lesson always consists of three stages:
- warm-up;
- basic training;
- cool down or stretch.
Let's look at each of them.
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Training for girls in the gym, similar to other options, begins with a warm-up. It can take from 14 to 20 minutes and is divided into two parts:
- running or walking “uphill” on a treadmill for 7 or 10 minutes;
- squats, bends to the sides and back and forth, push-ups for the same time.
These simple exercises will help tone your muscles and prepare them for stress. Following the warm-up, the main training process begins. Let's look at what exercises in the gym will be optimal for girls.
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High number of repetitions
Women differ from men in that they are able to do more repetitions in each approach, do not feel tired longer and recover faster.
It's genetically determined. In female muscles, the percentage of myofibrils responsible for contraction and relaxation of muscle fiber is low. If men are good at gaining muscle mass by working with heavy weights with a small number of repetitions, this trick will not work for women. Many approaches and repetitions in women's training will ensure active fat burning and gradual muscle growth. Minimal breaks between approaches will enhance the effect.
The optimal number of repetitions in sets is from 12 to 20.
The basis of the training program
The training program for girls is made up of standard exercises, but their inclusion in the plan, as well as the intensity of the load, depend on the individual characteristics of the body. The following exercises can be distinguished:
- Warm up. Before performing any complex, it is necessary to warm up the muscular and joint system for 5-7 minutes. This will avoid injury.
- Twisting. It is carried out to activate blood circulation and load the press. It is recommended to carry out 6-7 approaches, with the maximum number of repetitions possible.
- Squats with a barbell. The exercise is aimed at developing the muscles of the legs and buttocks.
- Rows on a vertical training block are designed to load the spinal muscles.
- Barbell press using a narrow grip, performed in a lying position. The load is aimed at the triceps, anterior deltoids and some other pectoral muscles.
- Pulling the barbell to the chin. The goal is to load the shoulder girdle.
Strength exercises help burn excess fat
The given exercises are done in this mode: 6-8 approaches with 12-16 repetitions in each. There should not be a long break between approaches - the interval should be 30-50 seconds. The weight of the weights is selected according to the principle: at the last repetition it becomes difficult, but doable. The list of these exercises is considered basic. It can be added with other techniques or the intensity can be changed.
For beginners in the gym or at a minimum of energy tone and for girls, a lightweight version of the training is recommended:
- Warm up for 5-6 minutes.
- Strength part: deadlift on a vertical training block; bench press with a narrow grip in a lying position; lifting the barbell to the chin - all exercises consist of 3-5 approaches with 12-15 repetitions.
- Cardio exercise on an elliptical trainer or exercise bike (heart rate zone - 105-125 beats per minute). It is carried out at a slow pace for 25-40 minutes.
An exercise bike is suitable for beginners
What should be the weights?
Women are less strong than men, that's a fact.
Therefore, they work with light weights to prevent injury and not strain themselves. To choose the right working weight for an exercise, a woman should focus on how she feels, the desired load and the number of repetitions performed :
- For beginners who want to lose weight, you can start by choosing dumbbells weighing up to 2 kg;
- Equipment weighing 3-10 kg will help tighten muscles and slightly increase muscle mass, depending on your level of training;
- Gradually, the working weights will increase; a trained woman will be able to squat with a weight of 30-50 kg.
You don't need to start training with heavy weights right away. For the initial stage, it is important to hone the technique of correctly performing the exercises, and then gradually increase the weight of the weights.
Muscle distribution
The overall ratio of muscle to body weight is not the same in men and women.
The average ratio of muscle mass to total weight in women is about 36%. For men, the numbers are higher - from 40 to 50%. The distribution of muscle mass throughout the body also varies. In women, more muscles are concentrated in the lower body. The emphasis in the exercises is on the legs and buttocks, which are pumped faster than the muscles of the back, chest and arms. The upper muscles are much more difficult to train; during training they require more time and attention.
A scientific experiment showed that if you compare a woman and a man of approximately the same level of fitness, the muscles of the woman’s upper body will be 40% weaker, the muscles of the lower body will be only 20%.
Working with the lower abdominal muscles is especially difficult for the weaker sex. In the lower abdomen, a woman has few nerve endings, which reduces sensitivity to menstrual pain, but the reaction of this area to stress is also reduced.
How loads increase
As you get into the rhythm of training, the body gets used to the loads, and you can gradually move on to more complex exercises. For those who have had a taste of the classes and have already felt the first positive results, we can offer the following complex:
- Warm up for 5-7 minutes, you can use a treadmill, exercise bike, etc.
- Twisting combined with leg lifts. This exercise is performed with maximum duration in each approach, i.e. until a burning sensation appears in the rectum.
- Barbell squat with added deadlift. In addition to the gluteal muscles, the front and back of the thigh are loaded.
- Rows on a vertical training block combined with rows of a barbell on an incline bench. The exercise develops almost all the spinal muscles.
- Close-grip barbell press with the addition of barbell curls. The muscles of the arms are involved.
- Lifting the barbell to the chin, followed by swinging the dumbbells in different directions. This ensures universal development of the entire shoulder muscles.
The barbell press develops the muscles of the chest and arms
All exercises have 5-6 approaches with 12-16 repetitions. The training program for beginners, as a rule, is structured as follows: a lightweight version is carried out for 4-5 weeks, then, if everything goes well, the loads increase gradually - moving to a standard, and then a more complex complex.
Nutrition
Along with physical activity, proper nutrition plays an important role in building a beautiful body.
If your main goal is to lose weight, it is important to carefully monitor your caloric intake.
In order for the body to cope with intense physical activity, vitamins and minerals must be supplied in sufficient quantities with food.
You can't completely give up fat . The right fats have a positive effect on the hormonal and cardiovascular systems of women. Women who consume more fat burn more calories during workouts, bench press more weight, and are more toned.
There should be few carbohydrates in the diet . It is better to fall a little short of the daily norm than to exceed it. It is important to minimize the consumption of fast carbohydrates: sweets, baked goods. It is fast carbohydrates that most easily turn into fat, which is difficult to fight.
The building material for muscles is protein . There should be a sufficient amount of it in food, especially for lovers of strength training.
A balanced, varied diet is the key to a good figure.
Strength training for women (O. Fetisov)
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This article will tell you how to minimize the possible negative consequences of strength training for women. I think it will be useful for women involved in powerlifting, weightlifting, bodybuilding, fitness, and in general all those women who train in a strength style..
A woman's constitution is largely determined by her reproductive function, which is naturally reflected in her anatomical structure. Of course, this is the strongest obstacle to improving strength and speed-strength results. However, many women do not take these factors into account and try to copy men's principles of physical training, without fully realizing the possible consequences. For example, an increase in pressure during serious physical stress negatively affects the sexual sphere of women, the ability to bear a fetus and give birth. For adequate nutrition of the embryo during pregnancy, increased blood flow to the uterus, which is penetrated by a dense network of blood vessels, is necessary. An increase in pressure when lifting heavy weights can disrupt their structure, lead to general unfavorable changes in such a complex organ and the impossibility of bearing a fetus. It is clear that big sport requires high training loads from athletes with full dedication of strength and energy. And what to do if you need to lift a barbell of 120 kg. Here, even the most experienced coach, pushing his student to achieve maximum results, is unlikely to help her maintain excellent health.
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And yet, many years of experience in training athletes suggests that sometimes it is still possible to deceive nature, both with a special technique and with little tricks developed during strength training. If, to improve the strength and speed-strength qualities of the leg muscles, it is necessary to use lifts from squats and half-squats, then you can resort to some tricks. They, of course, are not universal, but they will help you avoid many troubles with minimal losses, and sometimes without them. So, in athletics, some coaches used the following methods. For example, you can perform squats on one leg, calculating the load on the muscle so that it corresponds to a squat on two. If your own weight is 60 kg, and you can squat with a barbell weighing 50 kg, then using the formula you can calculate the load for one leg.
M3= (M1+M2):2 – M1 M1 – own weight in (kg); M2 – the weight of the weight with which the exercise should be performed on two legs (kg); M3 – weight of the weight to perform the exercise on one leg (kg);
Having calculated the weight for squats on one leg using the formula, we get: (60kg + 50kg): 2 –50kg = 5kg
You should perform single-leg squats with a 5kg weight, applying the same load to the quadriceps muscle as a double-legged squat with a 50kg weight.
Attention! For those who cannot or have difficulty squatting on one leg without weights, this formula naturally will not work. They can use the exercises described below.
Of course, there is no complete analogy with the basic exercise (squatting on 2 legs), but the main working muscles are worked no worse. For convenience, you can stand with your foot not on the floor, but on a raised platform, so that your free leg is lowered down. With one hand you can lean lightly on something to better maintain balance, and with the other you can hold the weight. There are a lot of positive aspects to such an asymmetrical exercise. Well, for example, along with a slight increase in blood pressure, there is also a milder effect on the spinal column. The difference, as you understand, is colossal: pressure is 50 or 5 kg. When performing the last repetitions (against the background of fatigue), you can adjust the technique without fear of serious injury. So in some cases, women have very real workarounds that keep them healthy and improve their results.
If for some reason this exercise is not suitable for you, it doesn’t matter, you can try the bench press, which also does not put much strain on your back, and also partially removes the load from the abdominal muscles. But, carefully monitor your breathing, trying to avoid strong straining and the “to failure” principle. The leg press is the closest thing to a real barbell squat.
Another important aspect: over the years, women's bone density decreases somewhat. Calcium added to food does not always help. By engaging in physical training, you can normalize the course of metabolic processes, as well as the absorption of substances necessary for bones. But in order to strengthen bone tissue, training must contain strength exercises, since they are the ones who qualitatively change its structure.
LESS IS BETTER.
A 1987 study of 300 women intensely involved in competitive bodybuilding found that nulliparous women who exercised more than 1 hour daily had an increased risk of ovulatory changes. Most often, menstrual dysfunction in women occurs due to hormonal changes that occur as a result of the body losing fat. Intense training stimulates the production of testosterone, the male hormone. Nutritionist Chris Sear explains this by saying that male hormones “trigger” special beta receptors that promote the release of fat and its combustion as a source of energy.
The mechanism by which a woman’s sexual function decreases when she loses fat is associated with the survival processes inherent in her. The possibility of conception is not allowed if the body does not have sufficient energy reserves, which can be stored in the form of a subcutaneous layer of fat. If this supply is below optimal, the ability to conceive and give birth to a child is noticeably reduced. If this condition recurs, sexual dysfunction may become chronic and cause other negative consequences. This must be taken into account when building any training programs for women and especially girls. Training methods, if possible, should exclude the task associated with too intense fat burning, and especially not allow maximum “drying out”. Professional female bodybuilders are unlikely to understand us, but those who listen to our advice will be endowed with good health by their body.
Women need to remember that their functional characteristics lead to an increased heart rate during physical activity and a longer recovery time. Especially during the menstrual phase, women may experience increased heart rate, increased blood pressure and increased excitability of the nervous system. Women generally have relatively lower functionality of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems. And this, unfortunately, greatly affects their physical performance, which is lower than that of men.
The characteristics of the female body should be taken into account when conducting self-control during the training process. Monitoring the menstrual cycle is mandatory: recording the onset, pain, duration, frequency, etc. The duration of the menstrual cycle is almost always the same, but with great physical overload, the nature of its course may change. During menstruation, as well as some time before and after it, there may be a decrease in muscle strength and physical performance, and a deterioration in the response of the cardiovascular system to stress. This is important to consider even if a woman’s menstrual cycle proceeds favorably. At this point, you can play sports, but the load needs to be reduced somewhat. You can control it using your pulse. So during training it should be 10-20 beats lower than usual. When performing strength exercises, try to avoid maximum tension, and in static mode, do not hold for as long as possible. In a more gentle mode, work on your abdominal muscles, reducing the number of repetitions in approaches, as well as choosing the lightest weights.
LAST ADVICE.
If you strive to achieve not only good athletic results, but also maintain health, try to adhere to one very important rule. Recovery should always be complete and completely relieve fatigue from the previous workout. This is often forgotten due to the incredible adaptability of the body (especially the nervous system) to stress. Be sure to make sure that before each training session you feel absolutely alert, so that you are not bothered by discomfort in your muscles. An extra day of rest will not in any way worsen your fitness; on the contrary, it will protect you from injuries and overload of the body, the recovery of which may take a longer period. Do not set a goal to train every day, although this is possible with the correct alternation of loads on the muscles and functional systems of your body.
Similar
Metabolism
Metabolism in the female body is slower than in the male body; energy consumption per kilogram of weight to maintain the normal course of vital processes is lower in women.
Genetically, women are predisposed to accumulate fat for the normal functioning of the body and the health of the reproductive system.
The normal percentage of body fat in a woman is between 16 and 25%. For a man, only 3% is enough.
Men burn fat even at rest, and their post-workout fat burning lasts longer.
At rest, the female body practically does not burn fat, feeding on glucose obtained from carbohydrates. Only hard training helps transform excess fat reserves into energy.
Glycogen in the body
A feature of the female body is the rapid processing of calories into the required amount of glycogen, and the same rapid rate of its consumption.
Excess carbohydrates are transformed into fat on the sides faster than in the stronger sex. At the same time, women's need for glycogen is less than men's. The body usually uses subcutaneous fat as training fuel.
As a result, performing exercises of the same intensity, a woman burns more fat, less carbohydrates and protein than a man..
The main goal of women's training is weight loss and correction of problem areas. A rare representative of the fairer sex strives to build muscles. Adapting the training process to the characteristics of the female body will increase the effectiveness of training and acquire the figure of your dreams without harm to women’s health.