Since her college days, Mary MacAdam always has exercised, even through her four pregnancies. Last spring, while doing step aerobics, MacAdam couldn’t help noticing the strength training apparatus across the gym.
She was intrigued.
“I really wanted to try that. I was ready for a challenge, a step up from what I did.”
But she was also intimidated because she did not know how to use any of the equipment properly. “I couldn’t imagine just walking into a gym and hopping on.”
So, she took three private strength training sessions with Jane Ciras, a personal trainer. Ciras explained the correct technique for each piece of equipment and what part of the body would benefit from its use. She also set up a customized program of exercises that MacAdam, with an occasional adjustment, could follow.
That program, according to Mac-Adam, allowed her “to exercise my whole body, in a way that made sense. I have seen some other people in other gyms come in and jump on the machine and just rip off some bicep curls and then they jump off. And I think, `You are not doing what you need to be doing.”‘
MacAdam, who added strength training to her step-aerobic program, is not the only woman exercising with free weights and weight-attached equipment. In fact, she is joining a small revolution in an exercise world that was used to segregating workouts by sex: Men got the weight apparatus; women got yoga and aerobics.
But now, a study by the American Sports Data and the Fitness Products Council has found that the use of free weights by women increased 123 percent from 1990 through 1998, when 18.5 million women used free weights.
Even more impressive, women have adopted strength training–a repetitive exercise in which a body part is moved by connecting muscle through a range of motions–at a rate four times greater than men during the same period.
“When you think about fitness, there are really three components,” said Paul V. Roland, a registered nurse who designed and directs the Cardiovascular Prevention Program at St. Vincent Hospital at Worcester Medical Center.
“There’s a cardiovascular component, which involves aerobic exercise–walking, biking, swimming–which has been popular since the 1980s,” Roland said. “But, there are also two other components, which are beginning to gain more in popularity and which also should be included in any well-rounded exercise program: strength training and flexibility training.”
To be most effective, weight or strength training should be performed regularly. However, unlike aerobic exercise, which should be done nearly every day, strength exercise should be done only two or three times a week so that the muscles can recover fully between sessions. And, because weight training can raise blood pressure, some women may need to get their doctor’s OK before they start working out.
So why should women consider weight or strength training, either on its own or in combination with aerobic exercise or yoga?
“Women, as they grow older, lose bone density and muscle,” said Donna L. Savage, co-founder of Savage Fitness in Sutton, Mass., with her husband, Michael. Some experts say that individuals after age 25 lose about a half pound of muscle each year. Studies have shown that many elderly women become so weak they cannot lift a bag of groceries or attend to everyday chores.
“Men already have more muscle mass in their body to begin with, so they don’t have as much of a problem as women. In order to stop that loss or to change it, women have to get the strength training going,” said Savage, whose company just introduced “Go Figure,” the first line of strength equipment designed exclusively for women and engineered to tone and strengthen a woman’s body.
Designed for home use, the equipment offers a fitness bench with a “butt-and-thigh” extension and storage for contoured weight plates, which can be changed in seconds to decrease or increase poundage. The dumbbell bar, which weighs 2 pounds, and the barbell bar, which weighs 5 pounds, are light enough for beginners, but durable.
“Most men’s fitness equipment is designed to build bulkier thigh and chest muscles,” Savage said. Go Figure is designed to make women stronger, but look trimmer. And losing flab is another reason women seek strength training.
As women get older, they also start to gain a little more weight, partially because they are losing muscle and therefore not burning as many calories a day as they used to. If you just diet without strength training, you will lose muscle mass along with the fat tissue. And that means you also lose more of the ability to burn calories at a faster rate.
“If you are doing the same thing that you did 10 years ago–walking, yoga, aerobics–you can’t get rid of that extra 10 pounds,” added Savage. “The more lean muscle you can build on your body, the more calories you are going to burn, even when you are not exercising.”
Looks, increased strength and endurance are not the only benefits.
Women who practice strength training, according to a study by Miriam E. Nelson, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, not only control their weight and increase their energy, but also increase bone density, therefore reducing the risk of osteoporosis.
Studies of thousands of women by weight training expert and researcher Wayne Westcott found that four months of weight training can increase the body’s glucose utilization by 23 percent, decreasing the risk of adult onset diabetes. A woman’s cholesterol profile and blood pressure can also be improved, as well as her self-esteem and general mental health.
MacAdam, who has exercised with weights and strength training equipment twice a week since April, has seen changes in her body. “I have seen increased muscle definition, but I have also lost inches and I have also lost 10 pounds.”
She also feels much stronger. “Just in daily tasks, I have an increased confidence and sense of capability; things don’t really intimidate me anymore,” she said.
“On the machines you work the muscles so individually, in such different ways, that you really increase your awareness of how your body works,” she added.
If Sister Mary Gerrior had been more aware of the physical changes her body was undergoing, she probably would have been better off.
She had always been an active person, but when she switched careers, nursing to counseling, she became more sedentary. “Before I knew it, pounds had piled on,” she said. Then, at age 73, she had a heart attack. “The heart attack was a big surprise.”
Fortunately, she came out of the heart attack well. “They said I had a second chance,” Sister Mary added, and she realized that, if she were to make that second chance count, she had to make physical changes.
Participating in the cardiovascular program Roland designed for St. Vincent patients, Sister Mary has tried to regain some of the strength she lost.
“You don’t have much strength or energy after a heart attack,” she said.
Lifting small weights is restoring strength to her arms and shoulders; biking and walking on treadmills is restoring strength not only to her legs, but also to her heart.
“The weights were hard at first,” said Sister Mary, who believes it’s difficult for older people who have not been active to start again. “But you begin to see a difference.”
Roland included weight training along with cardiovascular exercise in the St. Vincent Hospital program because of a “study which showed that people who did cardiovascular exercise and weight training lowered their `bad’ cholesterol (LDL) and improved their `good’ (HDL) cholesterol more than people who just did cardiovascular exercise.”
Besides physically rehabilitating heart attack patients, the St. Vincent cardiovascular program has a second major objective: to get people into a pattern of exercise that they will continue after the program ends.
“I will continue this,” Sister Mary said. “I know a good thing when I see it.”
