This is one of the most frequent fears I hear in the clinic. “But I don’t want to get big and bulky so I shouldn’t lift heavy.” When you step in the doors to the clinic at Evergreen Wellness Co., you’ll notice it looks much more like a gym than a traditional medical clinic. It’s designed that way on purpose. So many times, we get stuck in the rut as rehab professionals to the “standard” exercises. The light bands and table exercises that bore most of us to death and don’t seem to ever make us better.
Now I agree there is a time and place in injury rehabilitation for table exercises and TheraBand resistance. However, eventually we need to get back to real life activities, which includes lifting real weights. I don’t care if you are a typical gym-goer or not. I encourage all of my patients to be lifting weights.
My 70-year-old patient who is a grandmother wanting to be strong enough to pick up her grandchild, my young runners who want to get faster for cross country, my middle-aged office worker who wants to improve posture and reduce back pain. I believe all of these patients can benefit from lifting weights. A key component of injury rehab and future prevention is to build up strength and tolerance for the daily stresses we place on the body. And sitting there waving a yellow band 30 times is not the way to do so.
That bag of groceries weighs a lot more than a yellow band. So does that grandchild. Hence my reasoning for using real weight in the clinic. But it never fails when we get to that point in rehab where I begin increasing the weight, my female patients are afraid they will get “too bulky.”
Now there are a lot of factors that play a role in muscle building. Training, nutrition, rest/recovery, and hormones. Testosterone is the frontrunner in building muscle mass, and women don’t have nearly the levels of testosterone that men do. So, unless you’re training to be a professional bodybuilder and are taking steroids, there is no way that a woman is going to bulk up from lifting heavy weights naturally.
But what you are going to be doing is helping improve bone density, reducing your risk of osteoporosis as you age, and improving your quality of life by being strong and capable of doing the activities you want to do.
So, you don’t have to be afraid of lifting heavy weights. You should be prioritizing the strength it is giving you, for your daily life, your hobbies, your health, and your future.
Do you want to make a change and gain the strength required for daily life? Schedule a physical therapy or personal training appointment today and get back to enjoying life to the fullest.
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