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5 Minutes

Yes, Women Should Strength Train Too

Oct 16, 2025

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I’ve always looked at the human body as a machine. Specialized systems working together to create a unique vehicle capable of creating, regenerating, moving, learning, adapting, and healing. Our bodies are incredible vehicles that carry us through life.

If you were to purchase a car and only use it periodically without proper maintenance, it’s not going to run as smoothly, look as shiny, or last as long as it should. If improperly fueled, the engine becomes clogged and directly affects other systems, leading to the breakdown of the entire machine.

In the same way, our bodies are interconnected systems made of smaller operating parts. We get one body to carry us through an entire lifetime, and ain’t nobody got time to get rusty, dusty, and musty.

Want to keep your body functioning the best it can? Stop leaving the strength training to the men.

Debunking the Bull$h*t

That’s right. The benefits of lifting weights aren’t confined to half the population. Strength training keeps your bones and joints pliable, your neuromuscular (brain-to-muscle) connection active, and your muscles healthy. (Just don’t forget to round out your training with cardio and balance/mobility.)

One reason women avoid strength training? We’ve all heard it. They don’t want to get “bulky.” Scientifically speaking—that’s bullshit.

Women’s muscles are typically smaller than men’s—though they may actually be able to endure more—due to higher estrogen levels in women and the prevalence of different muscle fibers. What does that mean? You’d have to lift heavy and eat a lot to “bulk up.”

Strength Training for Life

For women, the benefits of strength training through life are endless. Puberty, pregnancy, and menopause are key points where fluctuating hormone levels have a direct impact on the way we look, function, and feel. And strength training is beneficial every step of the way.

In adolescence, it’s an excellent way to build the foundation for a healthy lifestyle and to establish a positive body image.

As we get older, strength training can prepare the body for pregnancy, reduce the risk of complications during labor and delivery, and restore the body postpartum. It can also counteract age-related bone density and muscle mass loss and prevent osteoporosis.

Strength training boosts stability—reducing the risk of a fall as we age—and improves blood pressure, regulates blood sugar levels, and maintains joint mobility. Down the line, this all leads to increased independence at an older age.

How to Find Time to Train

Between work, having a life outside of it, maintaining relationships, raising a family and caring for loved ones, paying attention to mental health… it can feel like there’s not enough time in the day or energy in the tank to fit everything in.

There are many days when I have back-to-back clients and classes, then food prep, errands, chores, and it seems like suddenly, it’s damn near bedtime. Yet I’ve found that there are pockets of time—in between sessions, a space when the oven is “ovening”—that could instead be used to grab a weight or do some push-ups.

The only thing holding us back is ourselves.

You don’t need a fancy home gym or an expensive membership to put in the work. Our bodies are some of the most versatile and accessible strength training machines on the market. Planks, squats, lunges, and most other movements can be done with bodyweight and made more or less difficult by adding a variation to the movement pattern.

(That being said, progressively adding resistance is essential to fully reaping the health benefits of movement. Period.)

How to Start Training

Start slow, focus on correct form, and progressively increase resistance. Listen to your body and don’t try to increase intensity too quickly. Sacrificing form and proper biomechanics is a gateway to easily avoidable injury.

Most importantly: stick with it. Making real change requires consistency. It generally takes about six weeks to see physical results, but way less time to feel the effect that strength training has on your mood, sleep, energy, cognition, skin, and more.

There are countless physical, online, and app-based communities of like-minded people wanting to connect and get stronger together. Finding community can keep you motivated physically, and also boost your mental health.

The caveat with these communities? The trap of comparison. Just about every other person you see in a fitness facility or working out online has a different start point—a different set of strengths and areas to be improved upon, and a separate path of progression.

No human can be identical copies of each other, and THAT is a superpower.

You Reap What You Sow. So Put in WORK.

Our brain and bodies are wired to chase comfort for survival. But the comfort zone is where growth goes to die. If we don't push ourselves to reach new limits, we'll never truly progress.

As soon as we come to the realization that WE determine how far we can push beyond the discomfort of change and the potential awkwardness of learning new skills, then we’ll realize it doesn’t really matter what others think.

The health and function of a woman’s body will always be more important than the way its appearance makes others feel. We get one body to carry us through an entire lifetime, and ain’t nobody got time to get rusty, dusty, and musty.