I won the leg press comp at school!

Woo hoo! I was a winner for the leg press competition at my university two months in a row! The second time, I might have been the only female, though, haha.  Still, I pressed 435 pounds.  Next time I'm going to start with 450 and see where I go from there.  Truly, it's not as much as it sounds.  If you google leg press competitions you will see others pressing 1000+.  I absolutely love lifting and I really wish other women would join me in the free weights.  I have 2 fifty pound children and a 30 pound toddler, and it feels great to have the strength to carry them and squat while holding my toddler.  Plus, heavy lifting has completely taken away the back pain I had for years due to having three kids in less than five years.  I only do cardio once, maybe twice, a week (besides my 10-15 minute cardio warmups) and focus on lifting 25-40 minutes with 30-60 second rests between sets. It's a great, heart-pumping workout.

Also, I highly recommend the articles on stumptuous.com, as well as New Rules of Lifting for Women.  The latter has some great exercises that are fun and challenging.  Also, the Men's Health Gym Bible.  All the exercises are appropriate for women, and as a women's studies instructor, I like finding how the names of exercises in the men's book are dfferent in the women's books :)

Happy lifting!

Larissa

Good job!! If you squat more with free weights, you'll definitely win with the leg press.

Good job. I too have found my back pain subside from lifting.

That Rocks!  Keep up the hard work.

Original Post by chicanamama03:
[...]and as a women's studies instructor, I like finding how the names of exercises in the men's book are dfferent in the women's books :)

Congratulations! It will be interesting to read your paper on this topic when it is published (you are going to write one, aren't you?—what an interesting topic this would be to explore).