General Comment About People Who Don't Lift

CoderGal

Awesome! Another success story for my notes.

Just added a little more to it :P

Health_Gal

You don't have to lift heavy at all to get benefits from strength training.

Try a class like "Group Power" (a strength training class that does lifts to music) at your local gym if you think you mighty like to get into strength training that way. They start people of f with low weights, or just the bar, until you feel strong enough to start putting more weight on the bar.

CoderGal

Not that I'm in immediate danger of either, but I'd rather have a dancer's body than a lifter's body.

As a dancer, I don't look any less then a dancer now then I do lifting then I did dancing. Everything has gotten tighter and slimmer. And Yep, I can still put my foot behind my head.

mmapags

I don't believe I am. You need the stretching and cardio of dancing, along with the strength training to get a dancers body. You need to dance.

Yes. Plus, be born to parents who had the right combo of genes to gift you a body suitable for dance.

Yes, you are so right. Cause and effect runs the other way. This reminds me of when people point to long distance runners and claim the exercise will make your muscles longer. Maybe people with long muscles (genetically determined) are more likely to become successful long distance runners. Successful competitive body builders will likely be those whose genetics are more conducive to the sport. There seems to be lots of confusion about correlation vs causation around here, including lack of understanding regarding direction of cause/effect and omitted variable bias. You know that higher ice cream sales causes more swimming pool drownings, right? The two are positively correlated!

eta: I totally reversed osteopenia (pre-osteoporosis) caused by medication solely by heavy weight lifting. The end.

Yes, quite true. Also, my friend Acg67 has a great chart that shows the correlation of the increase in pirate activity to changes with global warming. That proves it!! lol

LorinaLynn

This is why I love lifting...

A few months ago, I junk picked this old trunk on the side of the road.



I felt like She-Rah that I was able to pick it up and put it in the back of my truck by myself.

This is how it looked refinished:



I was using it as a coffee table, but it's a little too high, and the cats like to sit on it RIGHT in my line of vision if I lay down to watch tv. I wanted to take it upstairs. Problem? It didn't fit through the opening at the landing at the bottom of the stairs, because whoever built my house was a complete idiot and made things non-standard sizes. To take it up the steps, I had to lift it up OVER the railing, which means lifting it over my head. Granted, I could have been less stubborn and waited until my husband got home, but that's just not like me.

So, yeah... thanks to lifting, I can pick up a trunk made of wood and tin, measuring 40" long, 25" deep, 27" high, over my head by myself.

And I thought I felt like She-Rah before...

ShmoozyQ

Besides the numerous health benefits that have already been discussed....

It just makes me feel like a total bad-a**.

That's reason enough right there.

jonnythan

Besides the numerous health benefits that have already been discussed....

It just makes me feel like a total bad-a**.

That's reason enough right there.

It does, doesn't it?

On rest days, I feel like this:



After I set a new PR on the deadlift I feel like this:

KenosFeoh

When I made my original comment about aspiring to a dancer's body, I was thinking about belly dancers. Most of them look very fit, and they can do beautiful and controlled movements with their bodies, so it's obvious that they exercise and practice. I've never watched a belly dancer and thought "look at those muscles!" What I see is grace and control, and I aspire to that, not rippling muscles.

But I do lift and increase weights until I can't complete 12 reps. I recognize the importance of building muscular strength in my own life (I like to garden). But I think it's perfectly fine to aspire to something different than what heavy lifting gives you.

devil_in_a_blue_dress

When I made my original comment about aspiring to a dancer's body, I was thinking about belly dancers. Most of them look very fit, and they can do beautiful and controlled movements with their bodies, so it's obvious that they exercise and practice. I've never watched a belly dancer and thought "look at those muscles!" What I see is grace and control, and I aspire to that, not rippling muscles.

But I do lift and increase weights until I can't complete 12 reps. I recognize the importance of it.

Wait! There is more than ONE type of dancer?! Unpossible.

PJmetts

I've thought about lifting but I don't have weights and I belong to Curves for Women and don't want to join another. Curves says I'm getting strength training because their equipment works with resistance not weights. I also do strength training on my WII fit which includes lunges, pushups etc. And incase I'm not getting enough I also downloaded YAYOG. I did that on Saturday for 16 minutes and discovered the muscles I'm missing (I mean that I haven't exercised!). I'll probably try that once every 2-3 days as well. So do I still need to lift?

Real life example, I'm 51, I do resistance and was doing Jillian Michaels 30 DS with 3/5 lb weights only. I fell down 11 stairs, and cracked my collar bone in 2 places (not broken through). The first doc told me "You are lucky for your age" the Ortho told me "Its a good thing you exercise or you would have shattered that baby, its a very thin bone"

Resistance is helpful, lifting is helpful, have your DEXA scans and talk to your doctor if you don't really want to do more and are not sure if you should. I want to do more but have to wait, just not as long as I would have if I hadn't been doing anything.

Vailara

To the person who said they prefer a dancer's body, there basically the same body type a a female lifter, just more flexible.

Example Misty Copeland, very famous ballet dancer:

Misty Copeland doesn't have a typical ballet dancer's body, and that's something that seems to be mentioned whenever I read about her. I've seen some uncomplimentary comments about her body. She is more obviously muscular/athletic and has a bigger bust than is usually considered desirable.

Ballet dancer's bodies are important in whether they're selected for ballet school or ballet companies. If their body isn't right, then often they'd never make it, and so we don't see a big variation in body types amongst classical ballet dancers. Misty Copeland has done extremely well to make it with an atypical body (and she also started ballet relatively late!).

I did ballet when I was younger, but I was quite muscular in the legs, busty and much too heavy (at around 120 lb). Ballet didn't give me a dancer's body! So yes, ballet dancers and weight lifters can have similar bodies, but stockier ballet dancers will have difficulty making a career, whereas stockier weight lifters won't have that problem. So we tend to see long-limbed, less muscular looking ballet dancers, not because ballet has made them like that but because those are the ones who are selected.

meg7399

I have not read nearly all the comments...I got bored. JUST last night I started to read New Rules of Lifting for Women. It was insightful. According to what I have read so far is that you can't get a dancer's body. That body of long and lean is genetic. You can however get the muscle tone the dancer has...through lifting!!!! There are apparently no workouts to make a person long, lean, appear taller, etc. You can't change that part of your body!

Mia_RagazzaTosta

Besides the numerous health benefits that have already been discussed....

It just makes me feel like a total bad-a**.

That's reason enough right there.

It does, doesn't it?

On rest days, I feel like this:



After I set a new PR on the deadlift I feel like this:

totally agree. rest days feel so wronnnnnnnng!

eowynmn

@ Those knocking curves, seriously don't knock unless you've actually tried it.

It's actually a really great, non intimidating way to motivate women to weight lifting. It's the first form of weightlifting I ever tried, and was my gateway drug to having the confidence to go to a real gym. Did I stick with it? Nope, but that's not curves fault. I was a much smaller girl back then, and in my first month alone I can still remember losing 12 inches between hips/waist/chest/thigh/arm. That's a lot of inches.

Do you know how overwhelming it can be the very first time you walk into a lifting room by yourself, or even with a friend as a women, especially not one in shape? Trust me, if you understand a little about your muscles and what you are doing before hand, which curves can teach you, the intimidation factor goes down drastically.

Their machines are based on hydrolics and resistance, much like those at orangefitness (which I call 'curves for super fit people who like HIIT), yeah the name needs some work...

Without having done curves first, I wouldn't have found the confidence to go to the gym. Without doing that I wouldn't have done BFL, and without that I wouldn't have learned what healthy, clean eating is, and I wouldn't have learned NRoLfW or tried Bodypump, so it really is a continuum and Curves is Beginner 101.

If your grandma or your daughter is thinking about doing an exercise program, but lifting at the gym is too overwhelming for them, or they are uncomfortable exercising around men for whatever reason and they want to try curves, why not? Just tell them to keep it month-to-month, because if they get the lifting bug, they will want to move on.

mmapags

When I made my original comment about aspiring to a dancer's body, I was thinking about belly dancers. Most of them look very fit, and they can do beautiful and controlled movements with their bodies, so it's obvious that they exercise and practice. I've never watched a belly dancer and thought "look at those muscles!" What I see is grace and control, and I aspire to that, not rippling muscles.

But I do lift and increase weights until I can't complete 12 reps. I recognize the importance of building muscular strength in my own life (I like to garden). But I think it's perfectly fine to aspire to something different than what heavy lifting gives you.

Earlier in the thread there was a belly dancer who posted a picture of her body. How does her body look different from the pictures of the women who lift that have been posted? I've looked and I don't see any difference. Maybe you can point it out to me? As far as aspiring to something different that what heavy lifting gets you, I'd say that's up to the individual. I questioning what the difference is in a dancer's body and a lifter's body. Ruling out ballet dancers, I don't see any. And the pictures and comments posted by dancers confirm that.

bcattoes

When I made my original comment about aspiring to a dancer's body, I was thinking about belly dancers. Most of them look very fit, and they can do beautiful and controlled movements with their bodies, so it's obvious that they exercise and practice. I've never watched a belly dancer and thought "look at those muscles!" What I see is grace and control, and I aspire to that, not rippling muscles.

But I do lift and increase weights until I can't complete 12 reps. I recognize the importance of it.

Wait! There is more than ONE type of dancer?! Unpossible.

Yeah, one thinks of belly dancers, one thinks ballerinas. Me, I think more of a chorus line type dancer like the Rockettes. :ohwell:

CoderGal

When I made my original comment about aspiring to a dancer's body, I was thinking about belly dancers. Most of them look very fit, and they can do beautiful and controlled movements with their bodies, so it's obvious that they exercise and practice. I've never watched a belly dancer and thought "look at those muscles!" What I see is grace and control, and I aspire to that, not rippling muscles.

But I do lift and increase weights until I can't complete 12 reps. I recognize the importance of it.

<-lifts dances and belly dances. Honestly, check out the muscles next time. They have them. They just don't flex them for show. That's the worse thing about the lifters. Their photos are all *flex* and so for some reason it appears that people get it in their heads that they're walking around with their arms above their heads in flexed mode ahaha. You won't see a lot of hulk muscles on many of the slim lifters when they're not *flex*

I'm a terrible example but:

VS


Same arm and the more I lift the slimmer it well get despite the flex photos.

Also check out my giant thighs I got from all the squats</sarcasm>

KenosFeoh

No, I haven't seen all the pictures in the thread (and not the belly dancer posted earlier). I wasn't talking about every possible dancer anyway; I was talking about the dancers in my head. I have a DVD of belly dancers performing, and their bodies look very different from the bodies of weight lifters that I've seen posted around the forum here.

Again - I haven't seen all of them, but I did know that there are hard muscled dancers and less hard muscled lifters. I've seen a few examples of both in this thread.

If I didn't want to be able to dig out rocks and move heavy things around in the wheelbarrow to do landscaping projects, I don't think I'd do much weight lifting. I'd still practice belly dancing.

ArroganceInStep

I wish people would come to terms with the fact that a slightly higher body fat percentage will turn "OMG she's like SOOOOOO bulky!!!!!!! #Idontwannalooklikethat %whateverstupidtaggingthingpeoplearedoingthesedays" into "grace and tone and control" and all those other good adjectives people use for strong chicks that don't have super low BF%'s.

Also, what ProfRat said. Elite level athletes have genetics going for them before they get into the sport.

Finally, looking at the word 'lithe', a good chunk of the possible definitions describe something that can't really be shown in a photograph.

eowynmn

Oh and if you want a dancer's body, you can just look like me! I'm a totally hot zumba dancer. :P I'm all like out there shakin my money maker...and then some.