Miss Cosmo
Brittany Hagan is Miss Cosmopolitan 2009. Miss Cosmo is part of the Miss America scholarship program and a preliminary to Miss Indiana.
Brittany and I met at Beyond Your Best, a personal development program. We became friends and I gave her some help with her own workouts. Recently, she asked me to give some advice to her peers.
When I competed in bodybuilding, I remember always looking for a way to standout in the crowd on stage. I image the young ladies in the Miss Cosmo or Miss Indiana competitions had the same desire. My suggestion to help them stand out was to improve muscle tone.
My guess was that most of these women probably had somewhat healthy diets. I was also willing to guess that most of them did a lot of cardio but very little weight training.
Hours of cardio and calorie deprivation are not the way to look your best. Resistance training is the key to adding muscle and improving tone. Not only that, but when you add muscle you will burn more calories.
The goal of resistance training is muscle overload. This overload requires significant exertion. Deep muscle fatigue (not pain) is the sign that you’re experiencing overload. A good sweat is not enough. As I suggested to them, I find most people, especially women, underestimate their strength. This is where a trainer can be a valuable asset to you. They will no how to help you push yourself safely.
Regardless of what method you use, the point of resistance training is muscle overload. That’s the only way to increase muscle. Muscle overload requires significant exertion. Your workout may cause you to sweat but if you aren’t experiencing a deep muscle fatigue then you are not experiencing overload. For example, if you can do 15 reps of a particular exercise then you aren’t using enough weight. I find most people, especially women, underestimate their strength capability. This is where a personal trainer can make a big difference.
Weight training won’t require that you spend in hours lifting weights in the gym. Your own body weight can be sufficient to get the kind of exertion you need. And three 30 minute sessions a week will do.
If you aren’t doing any strength training I encourage you to give it a try.
Tags: muscle overload, resistance training, strength training, weight training
