Rachel Cosgrove on the Female Body: Start With Strength Training

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You go ahead and run.
I'll do as Mrs. Cosgrove suggests and do NONE.
Having personal experience with my body's adaptation to running while training for distance events vs. the continuing positive body changes and improvements from weight training, I choose to spend my precious workout time moving my body on all kinds of planes with resistance.
It's true, Cosgrove's focus is on free-weights, but she also provides a full "Metabolic Menu" of some of the toughest body-weighted, crazy intense cardio workouts I've ever done. Like her husband's book before it, "The Female Body Breakthrough" advocates REAL LIFE motions, done with intensity, for time. Compared to ANYTHING on the treadmill, well, there IS NO comparison.
I've also done those oh-so-popular with the personal trainer interval workouts where you do some rowing or elliptical work followed by some weights... Cosgrove's plan is WAY more fun, and for my money, more effective.
Please, wise fitness folk: Try it before you condone it.

YourHighness of FL 6:33PM February 01, 2010

I learned a lot reading not only the article but also the comments posted here!
Tracy, Status Now

Tracy9999 of CA 8:18PM January 14, 2010

"The body "gets better" at that task and does it at a higher efficiency, so burns less energy to get it done."
You need to read books on human energy metabolism and thermodynamics. There is a very small reduction (~5%) in energy expended when people begin to train and become more efficient, but the energy used plateaus after about a month and doesn't continue to fall after that.
Moat people need both aerobic and strength training. You won't improve aerobic power with strength training alone or vice versa.
“I lift and run, but I am trying to help my wife who broke her pelvis while being pregnant and back has a mild case of arthritis (sp?) and a herniated disk. She swims two or three times a week, is there a program that emphasize certain movements?”
Speaking as a licensed health care provider, your wife’s case is too complicated for advice over the internet from people with unknown qualifications providing specific advice about a patient that have never seen. Get your wife’s PCP to get her referred to a PT.

Dan of FL 8:38AM December 22, 2009

Dan, I think we're getting a little hung up on aerobic improvements. Those aren't the main point of her article nor is it the only measure of whether a program is sound.
I agree, and I'm sure Ms. Cosgrove would also, that most everyone needs a combination training program. Most people that I know who are into strength training also do something like high-intensity interval training at least a couple of times per week. Strength training 3x per week plus HIIT 2-3x per week would satisfy your idea of a combined program, right?
I think the main point to her article is to get women thinking outside the elliptical machine shaped box. Women almost invariably go into the gym and crank away for 30-60 min. of some kind of steady-state cardio and then leave. The few who lift weights either do light work on machines or very tiny dumbbells for high reps, neither of which will give them significant strength gains. Women need to get in there and lift some weights also, and it would be fine if they centered their program around the weights and filled in the rest with cardio. Currently, it's almost invariably the other way around, and the strength part of the program is a joke. That's why she emphasized free weights and that they must be heavy enough to cause an adaptation. You'd have no problem with these concepts, right?
By the way, I have a bone to pick with "The only way the average sedentary adult is going to get an aerobic training effect from weightlifting is if they do a circuit of 8 to 10 machines, place the machines about a quarter-mile apart and jog between each one of them."
Have you seen the free weight oriented conditioning workouts done at CrossFit and others? It's very easy to use tabata intervals with thrusters, front squats, etc. and get a tremendous high-intensity interval training workout. Also, why do you emphasize machines? That's an example of why there's a large rift between the academic exercise physiology world and the strength and conditioning world.

StrengthTrainer of KY 12:27AM December 22, 2009

Heart rate will go during strength training, but that does not mean that strength training will result in aerobic power improvements. The use of heart rate to gauge the intensity of aerobic training is based on the concept that heart rate will go up in proportion to the oxygen uptake during exercise. The training target heart rate zone of 70 to 85% of maximal heart rate corresponds to approximately 60 to 80% of maximal oxygen uptake, provided you are doing aerobic activity.
If you do strength training, your heart rate will momentarily increase because of the blood pressure changes and the high level of motor neuron activation, but the actual oxygen uptake is fairly low during weightlifting activity. Anybody that tells you that you can get a significant aerobic training effect from high intensity weightlifting simply does not understand exercise physiology. I say that based on having a PhD in exercise physiology and having published over 60 scientific articles. The only way the average sedentary adult is going to get an aerobic training effect from weightlifting is if they do a circuit of 8 to 10 machines, place the machines about a quarter-mile apart and jog between each one of them.
I agree with the author's basic premise that women can benefit from strength training. As a general rule, everyone needs a combination training program, including strength and aerobic conditioning.

Dan of FL 6:01PM December 21, 2009

Professor, you claim she's "mostly wrong" so let's go point by point.
1. Steady state running is not a great workout because our bodies adapt. All the runners I know run the same distance most every workout for years on end. I think that's typical among recreational runners. You're claiming that she's wrong in this paragraph?
2. Heart rate will go up during strength training. Have you ever done a heavy set of squats, overhead presses, or deadlifts? How is her claim in this section "wrong"?
3. It's not a good idea to go straight from the sofa to the street. Considering the obvious logic in her argument, I don't see how anybody could think she's "wrong" in that paragraph.
4. Women need different strength programs than men. Again, the logic is obvious. Why is she "wrong" in that paragraph?
5. It's important that the weights are relatively heavy. If a person goes in teh gym and pumps away with 15 lb for months, there will be no progress. This is not rocket science. You're claiming this pargraph is wrong?
6. Women should use free weights. Again, this is obvious. You're claiming she's wrong in this paragraph?
7. Three-legged stool analogy of mind-set, nutrition, and exercise. You're claiming this point is wrong?
8. 90%/10% eating rules. You're claiming this is wrong?
You're saying she's wrong on at least 5 or 6 of these points? I suspect that you didn't really read the article, but assumed that she made an argument that she did not make. The argument is that women would do better if they *focused* (some reading comprehension here, professor) on strength training. Nowhere did she say to never include conditioning in the program.

StrengthTrainer of KY 5:14PM December 21, 2009

She obviously doesn't have a PhD in exercise science from a reputable university. We do need strength training but the benefits of true aerobic work and pure strength training have little overlap. Looks to me like she is another Californian fitness person who assumes too much for what is being offered. She's right if you want visible body changes in musculature--wrong if she thinks that strength training will supplant aerobic work and its values to the cardio-respiratory system.
I wrote the first articles on scientific strength training for coaches and physical education teachers in 1964 and have written a number of texts in the area since. I was one of the first o teach university strength training and conditioning courses. (UCLA in 1955.) I was an early member of the American College of Sports Medicine and a founding member of the European College of Sports Sciences..

ProfBob of CA 3:03PM December 21, 2009

"The body "gets better" at that task and does it at a higher efficiency, so burns less energy to get it done."
You need to read books on human energy metabolism and thermodynamics. There is a very small reduction (~5%) in energy expended when people begin to train and become more efficient, but the energy used plateaus after about a month and doesn't continue to fall after that.
Moat people need both aerobic and strength training. You won't improve aerobic power with strength training alone or vice versa.
“I lift and run, but I am trying to help my wife who broke her pelvis while being pregnant and back has a mild case of arthritis (sp?) and a herniated disk. She swims two or three times a week, is there a program that emphasize certain movements?”
Speaking as a licensed health care provider, your wife’s case is too complicated for advice over the internet from people with unknown qualifications providing specific advice about a patient that have never seen. Get your wife’s PCP to get her referred to a PT.

Dan of FL 12:45PM December 21, 2009

Bob, Starting Strength by Rippetoe and Kilgore is probably the best beginner strength training program. Probably best to get both the book and DVD.

StrengthTrainer of KY 10:01AM December 21, 2009

I lift and run, but I am trying to help my wife who broke her pelvis while being pregnant and back has a mild case of arthritis (sp?) and a herniated disk. She swims two or three times a week, is there a program that emphasize certain movements?
Thanks!

Bob of NH 9:17AM December 21, 2009