There was once a time when women were afraid of weight training. Back in those days, they were also afraid of looking strong. After all, June Cleaver and Donna Reed didn’t have muscles, did they? Times have changed. Women now know that just as strong women are desirable, strong muscles are beautiful. As such, they have embraced the power of the mighty weight. And such a power it is! Here are some of the reasons why fitness-sawy women are adding weight training to their workout programs.

A Question of Balance

Whoever it was that created us made us almost perfect. Unfortunately, there were a couple of glitches. One of them is called muscular imbalance. Women are naturally stronger in their quadriceps than their hamstrings This makes us more susceptible to injuries such as ACL tears. This injury is common amongst female athletes One of the reasons this happens is because during the some movements, the legs decide to extend when flexion would have been the protective response. Why would your legs do such a silly thing? Simple answer: They had no choice. While your hamstrings control flexion, your quads control extension. Since your quads are your stronger muscle group, they will often respond to tasks that should have been performed by the hamstrings. As a result, the hamstrings might atrophy.

Your office might provide a good example of this scenario. If one person does all of the work, the other employees are under worked, and therefore might “atrophy. “Taking this idea out of the office and into the weight room, women can perform extra hamstring exercises to correct this muscular imbalance.

The pectorals, which are the muscles of the chest, are stronger than the back muscles. However, since these are our “beach muscles, “for vanity’s sake, we tend to work them harder. However, when we perform more chest than back exercises, we created a hunched posture, which can lead to back and neck pain.

It’s All Done with Muscles

Speaking of muscular imbalances, correcting them can also make you look slimmer. For most women, the hip bone is wider than the collarbone. This is why many women appear-to have big hips. Most try to mask the issue by wearing shoulder pads What if we told you that you can create your own, natural shoulder pads? By exercising your deltoids, which are your shoulder muscles, you can make your upper body look wider, which can make your hips look smaller.

It gets better. If you perform exercises for your lats, such as the lat pull down, you create a beautiful, V-shaped torso. This can actually make your waist look smaller. You can also create the appearance of having major cleavage by performing the chest-fly exercise. But remember, as mentioned above; do not do more chest exercises than back exercises.