Why women should lift weights

I hear it all the time. "I don't want to lift too much weights, I am going to look like a man." "I prefer doing cardio." If this sounds like you, it could not be any further from the truth, primarily because of two hormones, testosterone and estrogen. Both hormones are produced naturally in the ovaries. Testosterone has several functions, but lets focus on one task, which is assisting the body in muscular development. Estrogen also has several functions such as regulating menstrual cycle. But estrogen can also contribute to stubborn fat deposits primarily in the breasts, hips and thigh regions (the dreaded saddle bags).

Now here is the kicker, women have about 1/7 the amount of testosterone that men do, so the female body cannot naturally develop large man-like muscles, have a deep voice, etc. But as it relates to estrogen, women produce way more than men. So what does this mean? Unless you are loading up on testosterone, and estrogen blockers, the chance of looking like a linebacker may not be so realistic.

With all that said, why should women lift weights? Well, when you lift weights your muscles naturally become more dense. When your muscles become more dense, your bones produce more Collagen. What is Collagen and why is that a good thing? Collagen is a fibrous protein which provides the bones with strength and flexibility. By the way during that time of the month when you have your lady business, your body looses some Collagen. So essentially training your body to produce more Collagen is important simply because you will have a denser and stronger bone structure. Strong bones in turn help to prevent osteoporosis s(thinning of bone tissue and loss of bone density over time). You've seen her, the elderly woman who walks with a hunch; you guess it, primarily caused by osteoporosis.

Not enough to get you starting to lifting more weights? Well how about this. Ever notice that woman in the gym with the nice broad shoulders, and strong pretty arms and legs? You know her, the one you hate because she spends half the time you do working out, but you could only wish to have her body. How does she do it? SHE LIFTS WEIGHTS!! Which as I mentioned helps to develop your muscles. By the way its true, the more developed muscle mass you have, the more effectively the body burns calories even at rest. Essentially, muscle is a metabolic tissue and can burn calories for up to 15 hours following weight training.

Of course you can loose weight by doing a whole bunch of cardio. But guess what? You have no muscle mass. So one twinkie puts that weight right back on, while the fit lady you quietly envy, has had three twinkies, and not gain a single pound. Unfair isn't it.

So every once in a while I say to women, step out of that Zumba class, get of that spin bike, and to quote a good friend of mine, "train insane or remain the same.'

Too Much Cardio Doesn't Work

I often observe gym members as they go through their daily routines. On one particular day, two women caught my eye as they rushed in for a 1pm spin class. They got my attention primarily because I had noticed them running on the treadmill at 6am that same morning, as I met my first client. Each ran for about 40 minutes.

Two things came to mind as watch them head to spin class. One, these were two dedicated individuals, and two, they didn't really appear to be loosing any weight, even though I noticed them every morning at 6am on the treadmill. I forgot to mentioned they are both slightly overweight :(.

Now compare these women to a client of mine who I had only worked with for 1 1/2 months, and had lost 10 pounds while becoming more toned. The question comes to mind. What is my client (a 42 year woman)doing differently? Let me answer that question in parts. I trained a number women who compete in fitness shows, including my wife, Chikondi Mseka. During contest preparation, Chikondi can easily shed any where from 10 to 12 pounds in about 4 weeks, while doing cardio 2-3 per week, sometimes for only 25 minutes.

How is that possible you might be asking? Well for one thing Chikondi, and the client mentioned above, adhere to a very to a simple meal plan, which has them eating six times per day, while cycling their carbs and calories. In addition, they both do resistance training 4 to 5 times per week for up to 1 hour per session. These session are quite challenging mainly because I want to use all the glycogen stores in their bodies. FYI glycogen is derived from carbs, which your body uses as energy. Now since the glycogen stores are depleted during resistance training, when its time to do cardio, their bodies have to rely on their fat stores for energy. This of course results in weight loss. In addition, they both become toned and trim :).

So as I often tell my clients, that becoming trim is not only about how long your cardio sessions are. Its how well you balance them with proper weight training. Of course the right meal plan helps :). If you want further advice don't hesitate to consult KooYah Fitness.

Calorie-Cycling

You have finally made your mind up that you are going to loose weight. So you do some research and you find what you think is the perfect diet. Within a couple weeks you have dropped a few pounds, and you start feeling good about yourself. Then you hit that inevitable plateau, and the weight stops coming off. You punch it even harder at the gym, and still that mushy tushy won't go away. Eventually you get discourage, and give up.

Sounds familiar? The answer to this problem is more simpler than you think. The average diet states that if you reduce the calories the weight will come off. WRONG! Your body's natural instinct to preserve itself at all costs kicks in. Sensing a calorie deficit, your body shifts into starvation mode, shutting down all fat burning as it hoards calorie stores. The body simply adjust to your energy expenditure in order to revert to your previous weight, known as your "setpoint." The Laboratory of Human Behavior and Metabolism at Rockefeller University in New York conducted a study in 1995 which measured both obese and non-obese people who either increased or decreased their body weight 10 percent to 20 percent. In both cases, metabolism shifted--at a lower weight, the subjects began burning less energy throughout the day, while at a higher weight they burned more, an effort by their bodies to return to that "setpoint".

To combat the "setpoint" you must incorporate calorie-cylcing. In lay man's terms this means that when your body wants to return to your "setpoint", you jolt it with a surplus of calories (clean calories of course). From there, you cycle your eating patterns, daily if you choose, and this will restart your fat-burning furnace and help you forge a chiseled physique.

This is a technique that I have often used succesfully with my wife, Chikondi Mseka, when she competes in various Figure shows. If you would like to learn more about calorie-cycling don't hesitate to check us out at KooYah Fitness.

Chikondi's First Figure Competition

I am a personal trainer, and not to sound too cocky I think I am pretty good one, at least thats what my wife Chikondi says, so there you go :). In August 2008 Chikondi, came to me with a toothy smile and said “guess what I am going to do a figure show and you are going to train me.” I wanted to say hell no, because to tell you the truth I had no idea who or what a figure competition was. But like I said she had a toothy, oh wait a minute a mean beautiful smile, and you guess it I couldn’t say no.

The irony of all this was that neither of us had a clue where to start. The most we had done was train together, and I always thought that she had a great physique (I am so jealous of her calves LOL). Plus a couple bodybuilder friends had mentioned that she should consider doing show. To be honest I never really listened when they spoke. But unbeknownst to me Chikondi had dreams of being featured in Oxygen magazine which she had been a fan of for a while. So like true champs we started her training with an eye for a show in November 08.

So we found a posing coach, bought a meal plan, and off we went to conquer the figure world, YAY and a happy ending. Not! The first thing Chikondi didn’t realize was that I was going to turn into the evil trainer. You see, I started doing my own research on Figure shows, and the one thing that jumped out at me, was how fit and tight these women were. Yes Chikondi has a great physique, but when you are wearing heels and a bikini under bright stage lights, and standing beside fit looking women, you can come out looking two to three times your normal size. So I realized very quickly that in order to be competitive, she needed to come down from her 127lbs while maintaining muscularity in only 2 ½ short months. So I had to increase the intensity of her workouts, and let me tell you we bump heads. I pushed her weight training to another level, and upped the intensity and length of her cardio sessions. Combine with the diet, her abs started to show and her legs began to tighten up. That was the turning point, because then she began to realize why I was pushing her in that manner.

This was round about mid October, and the show was early November. So she started learning what appeared to be the easy task of figure posing: realization number 1 posing is hard as hell and we should have started earlier. There is an old bodybuilding saying, ‘you can have best physique, but if you can’t present it you can forget about winning.’ Not that it was perfect, but after a million quarter turns to the right, her package was starting to come together. Realization number 2, competition diet kicks your ass. True story, there were days when Chikondi would eat a plain salad in orgasmic pleasure, uttering weird statements like “spinach taste better than ice cream.” Needless to say there were other days when she would cry at the site of another protein shake.

But through it all my little pocket Hercules as I call her, preserved. We made it to the November 08 show through a few tears, “I hate you Peter you evil bastard,” a millions quarter turns to the right, and a couple breakdowns from the diet. So how does the story end? Well Ms. Thang won Novice Short, Novice Overall, and came fourth out of 30 women in the Open Short. Pretty cool huh?! Check out a photo journey of Chikondi’s progress at KooYah Fitness, in the Before and After section.

A parting thought, my wife and I have always been extremely close, but I have to say that the process made us closer. I also developed a passion for the sport of Figure, and have since trained and prepped Chikondi for three shows in 2009 and she won them all. As a result I am now working with several other women.

Is It Ok For A Fitness Instructor To Be Overweight?

During my soccer career, one of the most inspiring coaches I ever had, was obese. He had a magnetic type of personality that would make you want to jump off bridges for him. But during training he could barely get around the field. So basically my two cents is that its more about the individual and their personality than their outward appearance. If they can inspire you to new heights with just their oratory skills, I say amen to that. With that being said, when my wife, Chikondi Mseka, and I created KooYah Fitness, we made a conscious decision to follow a healthy lifestyle, one that our clients would want to aspire to.

What yours point of view on this matter? Be honest :)

WANT THOSE KILLER LEGS

Its true, there are a few folks genetically predisposed with great legs. The rest of us literally need to bust our behinds to get them in gear. But don't think for a second that genetics will just simply say “hey here are your Beyonce or Larry Fitzgerald legs,” the work still needs to be done. I often observe people working their legs over the course of many months with little to no improvement. I attribute this to four simple things; lack of intensity, variety, improper technique, and recovery time.

What do I mean by intensity? Before I answer that, do note your legs contain the largest muscles in your body. Therefore, they need to be pushed harder, to get improvements. If you have been doing the same weight, and rep count on a particular machine, try increasing the weight by 5% every three weeks, or hiking your rep count. Stop cheating yourself, and start the process of really challenging yourselves. Yes you will be sore, but improvements you will begin to see.

Ah variety the spice of life. Take note, you cannot keep doing the same things, and expect a different result. Your body is an amazing machine and will quickly become adjusted to your routine. So don’t just stick to the typical squats, leg extensions, curls, presses, lunges and so on. Mix it up, go for long hikes, take spinning classes, instead of walking on the treadmill try running, go dancing more often with less alcohol. Simply put try many different things, so that you are constantly keeping those muscles off balance. Plus, its breaks up the monotony.

Ok so now you have upped the intensity and starting to mix things up. Unfortunately, this will only go but so far if the proper techniques are not used consistently. Doing any exercise is difficult, that is why I always say seek help in the form of magazines, youtube, pay for professional help if you feel lost, look at yourself in the mirror when possible to make sure your form is correct. Technique folks is icing on the cake.

So since technique is the icing, then proper recovery time is the low fat strawberry topping. I always tell my clients, you need to give trained muscles a chance to recover. That means not doing the same body part everyday. When muscles are allowed to recover, they develop density and strength. So what is an ideal recovery time? As rule of thumb I always say least four days between very intense resistance weight training sessions. For things such as group classes, a day of rest will suffice.

So in your quest for those sought after show stoppers, I say good luck, and have fun with it. But if you ever need a little push in the new year, don't hesitate to get with KooYah Fitness.

By Peter Gordon

The Tao of Kooyah Fitness

“KooYah”—an old Jamaican patois word used to introduce something new or interesting—is the first thing that came to mind when Peter Gordon saw his wife, Chikondi Mseka collecting her figure competition trophies. Her journey to that moment included a rigorous weight training, flexibility, balance, nutrition, and massage therapy program, buoyed by a strong social support network. He then realized that the key to fitness success is to develop a synergy between the mind and body that contributes to overall wellness—the Tao of KooYah Fitness

The KooYah Fitness experience was specifically designed to allow anyone to meet their fitness goals through a holistic approach, as mind and body wellness are the key to overall fitness. KooYah fitness professionals will challenge you physically, and inspire you mentally. When you meet your goals, you will be able to say the world KooYah!