Fit & Fearless: 6 myths about weightlifting

When Fit & Fearless podcast team Vic, Tally and Zanna first stepped into the weights section of the gym (AKA the "testosterzone"), they were the only women there. They've since learned everything there is to know about weights - and are here to help empower you with knowledge!

Here are some of the myths about weights - debunked.

"Weight training builds a strong foundation," Tally says - and this applies to women and men. "It's building the strength you need to avoid injury, get better at your sport and enhance the rest of your training."

Zanna agrees: “Lifting weights can actually help – especially as a woman – improve your bone density. When we hit menopause, we are more at risk of osteoporosis than men – so it’s really important to try and increase that bone density.”

“Once you jump off the treadmill absolutely nothing happens to your body," Vic says.

"But when you do a full weight training session - even if its just 30 minutes - you get your metabolism boosting and firing. You’re building muscle mass. The more muscle mass you get, the more calories you burn when you’re sedentary.

"So, when you walk out the gym and you stop training, your body’s still having this mega effect. You’re still burning calories throughout the rest of the day!”

As personal trainers, the girls often see clients who want to be “toned” – but Tally wants to see this word “out of our vocab”.

“It’s not really a thing,” Tally says. “We’re building muscle, and then you’re losing fat to make the muscle more visible. That’s what’s happening!”

“It takes an awful lot of training and a certain diet to get that bulky look,” Tally says. “In general, you won’t get bulky.”

Zanna agrees. “Men in the gym – they will go to the gym seven days a week and be working out for years until they finally get that look... You’re not going to put on bulk in a week.”

If you’re really worried about it however, the girls have got some sound advice.

“If you don’t want to look muscly or super shredded, then you just wouldn’t put the kind of effort into really dieting down,” Vic says. “You’d just eat like a normal person and weight train."

There is one caveat about bulk. “You can slightly bulk up weights if you’re not doing them correctly”, Tally says.

Zanna laughs: “Men love traps – ladies don’t love traps. Women can train delts (the rounded shoulder muscles known as deltoids), we love delts. So the quick fire tip is please pay attention to form.”

The girls recommend “investing your time and money wisely” in a personal trainer, who can explain how to work certain muscles correctly and avoid growing muscles you don't want any larger.

As Zanna said earlier, muscle takes time to build. You’re not going to see immediate, visible results. But Tally has a plan to help you keep motivated - and it includes taking a notepad to your workouts...

“Tracking your workouts and seeing numbers increase is so much more of an incentive than aesthetics – because the aesthetics are the by-product... so it keeps you motivated week-on-week if you’re not seeing a change with your progress pictures."