Weight Lifting Workouts for Women

Most women who lift weights aren't looking to build rippling muscles. Rather, they're hoping to merely tone their body and lose weight. Do not perform a complete workout in one day. Rather, work your chest and back one day and shoulders and abs the next, etc.

Benefits

Weightlifting does not mean building enormous muscles.
Weightlifting is as important to overall health as aerobic exercise. It helps build stronger bones and increases metabolism. Muscle continues to burn calories even after you have left the gym.

Chest and Back

Tone your chest and back to achieve better posture and balance. The incline, decline and flat bench press, cable crossover and dumbbell flies tone your chest. Stiff-leg dumbbell dead lift, hyperextensions, bent-over dumbbell row, T-bar roll, lateral pull-down and pull-ups strengthen your back muscles. (Perform three sets of 10 reps each.)

Shoulders and Abs

Rid yourself of the excess fat on your shoulders and midsection. Tone your shoulders with the Arnold press, dumbbell press, dumbbell lateral raises and dumbbell rear row. For flat abs, perform plate twists and hanging knee raises (three sets of 12 reps).

Biceps and Triceps

Toning your biceps and triceps not only builds strength, but increases your satisfaction with your overall body. Perform hammer curls, dumbbell incline curls and one-arm preacher curls. For triceps, perform kickbacks, weighted bench dips and push-ups (three sets of 10 reps).

Legs

To tone your quads, perform barbell squats, walking lunges and leg presses (three sets of 10 reps). Perform Roman dead lifts, seated leg curls and lying leg curls to tone hamstrings (three sets of 12 reps). For toned calves, perform standing calf raises, donkey calf raises and Smith machine reverse calf raises (three sets of 15 reps).