Weight Training Workouts For Women

Weight training or strength training is a great way for women to get an impressively sexy and feminine body.

By adding a decent amount of proportionate muscle the right places you enhance your feminine figure and traits.

What you don’t become is masculine…

By doing weight training you of course also gain a stronger and healthier body and reduce the many risks of the modern sedentary lifestyle.

Cardio is also great and can be beneficial to increase your energy expenditure for burning off excess fat. I personally like walking. However, cardio alone will not do a lot for your figure.

Below you will find two weight training workouts for women that I am confident will help get fit and sexy!

Should Women Really Train Differently?

As the title reveals I think that women are probably better off training a bit different than men.

I believe that there are two main reasons for that.

If you want the best result out of your workouts it makes a lot of sense to think about how you can align your workout routine with what fits best to your physiology.

In my article on how to build muscle for women, I talk about why it could be better for you to lift a little bit lighter and doing a few more reps or an extra set.

Women are often a little bit more focused on their lower body and butt and I had that in mind when writing the workouts below.

The Workout Routines

These workouts assume you want to lift three days per week.

In terms of structure, I recommend either a 2-day or 3-day split. This means that you spread out your work over either 2 sessions or 3 sessions.

The 2-day split is initially very effective in increasing strength and building some muscle because of the frequency.

A high training frequency is especially good for beginners. For more on this, you can check out the ultimate weight training guide for beginners

As you progress you need to lift heavier and do more work in order to accomplish what in weight training terms is called progressive overload.

Because of that transitioning to a 3-day split is a good choice as you become more experienced The 3-day split allows more time for recovery and more work each session.

Progressive overload is the main factor determining factor for muscle growth and you can read more about it here.

If you are consuming fewer calories than you burn in order to lose fat, I recommend the 3-day split or that you check out my article on how to use weight training for weight loss.

2-Day Split

Workout 1 – Lower Body

Squats 3 sets of 6-10 reps

Note: Barbell squats or goblet squats are both great. If you are intimidated by the barbell start out with the goblet squats (using a kettlebell).

Dumbbell forward lunges 3 sets of  6-10 reps

Sumo deadlifts 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Note: you can do conventional deadlifts if you like. Compared to conventional deadlifts, sumo deadlifts are a little bit easier on the back and a little bit harder on the thighs because of the wider stance.

Curls 3 sets of 8-12 reps

Note: Do whatever type of curls you feel like, e.g. dumbbell or cable

Workout 2 – Upper Body

Lat pull-down 3 sets of 6-10 reps

Dumbbell bench press 3 sets of 6-10 reps

Note: do either flat or incline. Personally, I like incline because it puts less stress on the rotator cuff and focuses a little bit more on the upper part of the chest.

Seated dumbbell shoulder press 3 sets of 8-10 reps

Triceps Extensions 3 sets of 8-12 reps

Note: Do whatever type of extensions you feel like, but I believe cable push-downs are probably easiest to perform.

Rest 2-3 minutes in between all sets and exercises.

3-Day Split

Workout 1 – Lower body and shoulders

Sumo deadlifts 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Note: you can do conventional deadlifts if you like. Compared to conventional deadlifts, sumo deadlifts are a little bit easier on the back and a little bit harder on the thighs because of the wider stance.

Dumbbell Forward Lunges 3 sets of  6-10 reps

Seated dumbbell shoulder press 3 sets of 8-10 reps

Lateral raises 3 sets of 8-12 reps

Workout 2 – Upper body

Dumbbell bench press 3 sets of 6-10 reps

Note: do either flat or incline. Personally, I like incline because it puts less stress on the rotator cuff and focuses a little bit more on the upper part of the chest.

Lat pull-down 3 sets of 6-10 reps

Pushups on knees 3 sets of 6-10 reps

Note: Increase/decrease the distance between your arms and knees to adjust the difficulty.

Cable rows 3 sets of 8-12 reps

Face-pulls 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Workout 3 – Lower Body

Squats 3 sets of 6-10 reps

Note: Barbell squats or goblet squats (with a kettlebell) are both great. If you are intimidated by the barbell start out with the goblet squats.

Step-Ups with dumbbells 3 sets of 6-10 reps

Note: use a box or stairs to step up and down while carrying dumbbells.

Curls 3 sets of 8-12 reps

Note: Do whatever type of curls you feel like, e.g. dumbbell or cable

Triceps Extensions 3 sets of 8-12 reps

Note: Do whatever type of extensions you feel like, but I believe cable push-downs are probably easiest to perform.

Rest 2-3 minutes in between all sets and exercises.

How To Do Proper Warm-up

Do 2 warm-up sets of the first two exercises with 50 % of the weight. One warm-up set could be 5-6 reps.

Bonus: put extra focus on performing the movement correctly in the warm-up sets to take advantage of the lighter load.

How To Set The Intensity

The weights should be heavy as heavy weight training is simply the most efficient for both women and men.

Always aim for stopping one rep short of failure. That means if you feel like you most likely could only do one more rep you finish the set.

Obviously, if you feel you can’t even lift one more rep you should also stop.

But generally, you don’t want to lift until that fatigued.

When To Add More Weight

Use the same weight on all your working sets.

Increase the weight if you were able to perform all sets with the maximum number of reps last time you did it.

The weight should only be increased incrementally, somewhere around 1.25 – 2.5 kg / 2.5 lbs – 5 lbs.

If the number of reps you can perform are lower the first time you lift with the heavier weight you are doing it right!

Work slowly towards being able to perform the maximum number of reps again. Most time you will probably be able to add 1-2 reps.

Some exercises like squats and deadlifts can probably be increased by more than for instance seated dumbbell shoulder presses.

When To Do The Workouts

You should avoid working out on consecutive days.

But whether you do it in the morning, noon or evening doesn’t matter in my opinion. Perhaps sticking with the same time each session is best for developing the habit of working out.

How To Eat The Right Stuff

Weight training is great and will help get you that sexy feminine body, but your progress is going to be much slower if you do not also eat the right food.

To help you out I written a nutrition guide titled “The Awesome Nutrition Guide” and an accompanying email course.

Becoming Big And Bulky?

A lot has been said about whether weight training makes women bulky or not. I am sure you have read or heard this mentioned somewhere else.

Some people say it is nonsense and that it won’t happen unless you take steroids. Other say that it is absolutely true and that women should refrain from lifting weights.

I believe that there is some truth to it or at least I can understand why some women would like to e.g. avoid getting too big legs or too wide back.

But honestly, men can also become too big and bulky from weight training. At least in my opinion.

First of all, as building muscle takes time, I wouldn’t worry about it as a beginner.

A few weeks or months are not going to make you big and bulky.

It is difficult to give you a timeframe because individual preferences vary and so does genetics.

But if you are a complete beginner I would say you don’t have to worry at least the first 6-12 months.

My wife responded well very well to heavy squats and after 4-5 months she became concerned about getting too big legs.

I should say that she had done some lighter leg training before doing heavy squats.

Avoid Big And Bulky By Changing The Variables

There is a technique that works well to keep improving strength while avoiding muscle growth.

It also has the nice effect of increasing firmness and “muscle tone”.

The general idea is that you want to perform an exercise with a weight you can lift 8-10 reps and then instead do 5-6 reps.

So you are actually stopping the exercise many reps before failure. But you still want to perform the exercise with explosiveness in order to generate a strong tension in your muscles.

It can also be recommended to decrease the number of working sets.

If you are concerned about getting big and bulky, I recommend you pick the weight training and nutrition course from Kinobody. I have made a review of it here.

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