Because weightlifting can become a sport for everyone

Having gone from niche practice to mass sport, it still suffers the prejudice of false myths and clichés. That's why it's not an activity for alpha males only

It's not a sport for bodybuilders. Or at least, not only that. Over the years weightlifting has increasingly established itself as "mass" training. But many clichés and false myths still remain. In fact, we tend to view this sport with a certain aura of mystery, as if it were something relegated to a select few. In the common imagination, weightlifting brings back to the Olympic competitions of Russian athletes who are as pumped up as they are distant and inaccessible. In reality, the world of weights is not so limited. For a long time this practice - not Olympic lifting in fact, but the use of weights with powerlifting, bodybuilding or crossfit - was associated only with male athletes, moreover with a certain muscular prowess. Today the number of women who carry out activities with weights and participate in competitions is increasing.

Weights - image iPa But a series of fears related to this area remain. First of all: the fear of losing femininity. Women actually have a much harder time building muscle mass than men. Waking up one morning and finding yourself out of the blue with the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Eddie Hall would be next to impossible. The female physique produces a very low amount of testosterone: which does not allow a woman, with training alone, to become Mr. Olympia. The extreme cases that catch our eye are due to the use of anabolic drugs, and are not related to weight training alone.

Among the most widespread false myths, in no particular order:

* Weight lifting makes you slow and not very mobile - these qualities can be trained in parallel, with the right program

* It damages the joints: often the loads, chosen in an adequate way, are used for post-injury rehabilitation and postural gymnastics

* It hurts the bones: the weights actually improve bone density and in many cases they are used to prevent and counter osteoporosis, especially with exercises such as squats and deadlifts

* Running is better to lose weight: a mix of weightlifting and cardio can be more effective or circuit weight training

Doing weights therefore develops lean mass and reduces the increase in fat mass. Basal metabolic rate is consequently raised. It improves coordination, balance and endurance. By carrying out circuit training and with reduced breaks, the cardiovascular system becomes more efficient, improves aerobic capacity, decreases the heart rate at rest.

Lifting weights is good for the body but also for the mind. It helps to visualize goals, to obtain results that might have seemed unattainable before. Lifting - with the right training - ever higher loads, sometimes far greater than your body weight. This allows us to overcome our inner opponent, to give us energy and confidence in ourselves and to feel stronger every day, in a challenge between us and the barbell.

Weightlifting can therefore be the heterogeneous sport par excellence, it can include everyone. From the guy who wants to lose weight, to the woman who wants to define himself. Even the less handsome, athletic and vigorous man can achieve unsuspected results. And the most fragile, thin and insecure woman can achieve unimaginable goals. And get back in the game.


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