How to overcome your fear of weight lifting

You’ve been told that weight lifting has many benefits, but it scares you. With these simple tips, you’ll be feeling better about in no time.

Fear of lifting weights

If we’re being honest, there’s a longstanding belief that if we women lift weights we’re going to look like Terry Crews. Maybe you’ve seen women that look bulky and don’t want to look like that. Fair. We all have ways we want our body to look. Maybe we want to be lean but not have much muscle definition. Maybe we want that toned look everyone talks about. Maybe we want to keep our curves. Or maybe we want to be cut and have muscles showing through our shirts. Whatever your goal may be, starting weight lifting can be intimidating but helpful. So I’m sharing some strategies for make it more welcoming.

Getting started with weight lifting

#1 get help with form. This is key. Having quality form will greatly reduce your risk of injury. It’ll also help you feel confident weight lifting so you want to continue to do it. You can meet with a personal trainer, find some demo videos to follow, or even have an online movement assessment (which I’d love to walk you through). These are all great ways to learn quality form and ask questions so you feel good knowing you’re moving well. Some people at the gym might even be nice enough to help you. Just don’t bother them in the middle of a set or if they have headphones on.

#2 learn the basic movements. You have to learn to squat before you can do weighted jump squats. I think it’s very important not to skip this step. Some of the basics that you’ll want to master are:
Squats
Straight leg deadlift
Chest press
Shoulder press
Rows

The rest, you can learn as you feel more comfortable and depending on the equipment you have available to you.

#3 start with a weight that allows you to keep your form. Once you’ve got your form down, you’re going to want to keep that as you add and increase weight. The best way to do this is to start light. That definitely doesn’t mean stay light though. If you work out at a regular gym, machines are a great starting point. Then you can start incorporating the free weights (dumbbells and barbells).

#4 people might be watching you in the weight area, but they’re more interested in themselves. People at the gym tend to size themselves up to others, whether they admit it or not. They use this information for themselves and not against you. At they end of the day, they really only care about how much weight they are lifting. So just know, for the most part, they aren’t even paying attention to you.

#5 progress weight slowly to reduce injury. Adding too much weight too soon can be a recipe for disaster. Our bones, tendons, and ligaments need time to adapt too. So take it easy and progress slowly. You don’t want to put in all that work to be sidelined.

#6 plan for more rest days, at least initially. With your body adjusting to weight lifting, you’re going to be sore a lot initially and need more recovery time. Give yourself at least 24 hours of rest in between weight lifting sessions. As you adapt, you **can** shorten that time some depending on how your weight lifting sessions are set up.