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"Weight Training Advice for Women: How to Avoid 5 Very Common Mistakes Women Make in the Gym and Get Optimal Results in Minimum from Your Strength Training Program"

By Roxayn Daniels

More and more women are discovering the many benefits of weight training. Looking back about 20 years, I’m very thankful for the day that, out of curiosity, I picked up a women’s bodybuilding magazine off the grocery store shelf. To be honest, I was amazed at what I saw in those pages.

At the time, I was an international level cyclist and had been struggling with body image and serious eating disorders for years. I thought thin was beautiful, anything else was not. As I flipped through the magazine and saw some of the early female bodybuilders (this was during the pre-steroid era when women bodybuilders actually looked like women!) I was drawn to the beautiful, strong, athletic and yet still feminine physiques.

I joined the gym that same day and have never looked back! Weight training helped me overcome eating disorders, create a strong, fit, healthy body that I love, and ultimately changed my career path. Don’t doubt that strength training can also change your body and your life! Are you currently on a good weight training program?

Whether you’ve just started out with strength training and want to make sure you get maximum ROI (return on investment) for your time spent, or have been exercising for years but suspect that you could be getting even better results, I would like to share with you the 5 extremely common mistakes that I see women making in the gym along with some related tips that will “pump up” your workouts and your results.

1. Being Afraid of Building Muscle!
It’s silly but it’s true. Many women are afraid of building muscle. I can’t tell you how many times I have met with a new client and have heard something like, “I want to lose weight but I don’t want to build muscle or anything like that.”

I just smile to myself knowing from experience that once a woman experiences the incredible benefits of strength training and notices the ways it reshapes her body, changes her posture, allows her to eat more while maintaining a leaner body, and makes her stronger for everyday activities of life, she will begin to love weight training as much as I do! It’s empowering I tell you. Not everyone can be “skinny” but why would you aspire to be simply skinny anyways when you could be fit, lean, athletic, strong, and healthy! Fit and strong is truly beautiful and it is something every woman can achieve.

2. Attempting to “Tone” With Light, High-Rep Sets.
 In three words. It doesn’t work. Rather than endless reps with “Barbie” weights, get some real muscle tone using weights that challenge you. If you’re just beginning a weight training program, or have taken some time off, of course you should start slow and easy.

But over the weeks you should begin to challenge yourself more. Once you can complete your target number of repetitions with a weight it’s time to increase the weight. One of the best ways to track your progress is to keep a training diary in which you record your workouts including exercises, weight used, and repetitions. You should notice a significant increase in strength over time. (No you won’t get huge! Very few women have the amount of testosterone needed to build significant amounts of muscle. You will get surprisingly strong though. And you will get lean and shapely!)

3. Doing the Same Exercises and Following the Same Training Program for Too Long
 Ever wonder about those people you see in the gym year after year who never seem to make any progress? Usually those are the people who either aren't on a good nutrition program and/or do the same exercises and follow the same workout strategies month after month. To get great results and avoid plateaus, you should change up your training program at the very least every 6-8 weeks because once your body adapts to a training program or certain exercises, your progress stalls. A good personal trainer can help you develop a long-term plan for your fitness program.

Over the course of a year, you should progress through a variety of training cycles. This is called "periodization" and involves changing exercises, training volume, target repetitions and other training variables.

4. Too Much Time Spent Doing Cardio
 When I only have time for a couple short workouts during the week you will definitely find me hitting the weights rather than on the treadmill. Here’s why...

In many cases, women need to place more emphasis on weight training, and less on cardio. Don’t get me wrong ladies...cardio is an important component of any well balanced fitness program. But rather than spending too much valuable time doing long cardio sessions, it’s even more effective to bump up the intensity a notch and do just a few short 20 minutes interval training sessions each week. If you feel you need to spend hours every week doing cardio, it’s likely that your diet is not right. Which brings us to our next point…

5. Not Eating Properly
 As I discovered in my early strength training years, you simply won’t get the results you’re looking for if you’re not eating right! Your diet has to be on track if your goals are to build a little muscle, have optimal energy, recover quickly from workouts, and burn excess body fat. For example, what happens if you miss your “window of opportunity” after training and don’t eat any protein? Not very much!

Most common diet related mistakes I see with women? Not enough protein. Too many processed carbohydrates. Nutrient deficiencies.

Skipping meals and not eating small, frequent meals throughout the day. And eating too few calories and in doing so, causing metabolism to slow and your body to hoard body fat! If you want to receive your best results, you will have to put as much time and effort into your nutrition as you do into your training! Don’t be mistaken, your diet is up to 80% responsible for the visible results you will notice from your fitness training program.

So there you have it. While I have gone through many different fitness activity phases over the years - rowing, tennis, jogging, mountain biking, cross country skiing etc.- weight training is the one activity that has stuck with me. I will always “do dumbbells” because done properly, there is simply no other exercise that can dramatically re-shape and condition your body to the same degree and in as little time as weight training!

About the Author:

Roxayn Daniels is a certified Personal Trainer, Registered Nutritionist, and Life Coach in Vancouver, B.C. Her latest book, the Total Transformation Challenge ® is a unique 10 week fitness and wellness program for women. This program, complete with extra motivation and prize incentives, contains a 3 phase fitness program, a nutrition program that guarantees outstanding results, and the most effective transformation tools, strategies, and personal training “secrets” to help you achieve your fittest, healthiest, and most energetic body ever!

Visit for a variety of free "transformation tools" and resources or more information on the Total Transformation Challenge.

Personal Training site: www.transformationsfitness.ca