No random thoughts this Monday, but in its place there is a nice Monday rant…kinda
On the weekend I saw a women’s health magazine (NOT Women’s Health) and one of the headlines on the cover was “get a 30 minute workout in during your lunch” (not an exact quote), and this piqued my interest…”hmmm, what are they going to suggest?” I thought, so I opened the magazine up to the article.
It was essentially a 2 page spread giving a visual of the exercises and a small blurb about the muscles they worked and recommended weights.
Now the exercises that were recommended were pretty good (hip extensions and pushups were both included), however the loading recommendations were what caught my attention.
The hip extension movement was combined with a chest press, so the author gave a loading recommendation of “use 5 or 10 pound dumbbells”. Now here’s my issue with this HUGE generalization:
1) Why put a limit on what a person can do? (This is my biggest problem BY FAR with the recommendation!!)
2) It implies that lifting light weights is necessary for toning/not building bulky muscles (If only the world was so simple and black and white!)
Further, it left me thinking…
What if the recommended reps (15-20 in this case) can be performed with a heavier weight? Is being able to use 20 pound dumbbells going to make this exercise all of a sudden bad? Or will using heavier weight result in the woman no longer being feminine?
Again, I’m not bashing the article because if it gets women active and lifting weights that is the ultimate goal, but imposing limits in the recommendations is not something I agree with at all!
CB
