New England Journal of Medicine

New info came out today.  Seems that breast cancer patients have been getting bad advice.  Doctors have been telling women to not to lift weights.  Well it turns out that there were some people who bucked the system and did very well.  Researchers found that after treatment, women who lifted weights had less arm swelling because they had better arm muscle tone.

Sometimes I wonder why we have to research common sense, they found:

Weight lifting:

• Boosted mood
• Improved muscle mass
• Decreased weight
• Improved bone strength

Women:  Hit the weights.  You don’t need to be lifting the big manly ones, but a regular course of lifting will do the trick.  My only observation is that women often lift much lighter weights than they can.  I think that women often feel if they lift heavier weights they will get big and bulky.  Not true.  In our area365.com program women start with 13-17lbs and they can do it just fine.  2 1/2 lbs. isn’t really heavy enough for most of you.  The bonus of using more weight, you don’t have to workout so long.  We all need more time.

Men:  If you have a significant female in your life, make sure she is lifting some weight.  Cardio isn’t enough.  The health benefits are significant.  My wife is a living example, she feels better, is nicer to me, and is looking better every year she gets older.

As a side note:  Use free weights, not machines.  The benefits are infinite.  So as a bonus, you can workout at home easily.  Save the gas and time of driving to a gym.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 13th, 2009 at 10:36 am and is filed under Exercise, Breast Cancer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.