I realized that this September marks a year since I started lifting heavier
I thought I would post this here, because I still see so many women afraid to pick up a heavy set of weights.
I've been weight training since '09. Nothing serious, I lifted maybe 40lbs max. I remember STRUGGLING to lift that and ending up with back pain. Not cool. I wasn't really making all that much progress, but I did lift once a week from the summer of '09 to May of 2011, when I started watching my portions. I kept lifting as my weight dropped.
A year ago—September 2011—I said to myself: "what would happen if I started challenging myself?"
So I started adding weight to the end of my bar in the class. Within a few weeks I was lifting heavier than anyone else taking the class. Within a few months I was lifting twice as much (or more) as most people. After those few months I had enough courage to add another lifting day outside the confines of the class and began lifting even heavier on those days. Soon my weight training class was no longer the day I lifted the heaviest.
A year ago I made one of the best decisions of my life, and because of lifting heavy:
And now, the most important ones:
Lifting heavy has changed my life, and I hope that I can inspire at least one woman to look past the wrong information she's been fed and pick up a set of heavy weights. As it is I've managed to get other women at my gym picking up slightly heavier weights...now to get them to lift even heavier!
Not only has lifting shaped my body—it's shaped my mind too. I feel strong and confident, and that's an awesome way to live.