Why women must lift weights

Cardio has long been marketed to women as the “responsible” exercise, while lifting weights is treated as optional, intimidating, or “for men.”

- TDG NETWORK

But the science—and the life-course realities of women's health—point in the opposite direction.For women, resistance training is not a niche fitness trend; it is a preventive health tool that directly targets the conditions that quietly erode quality of life: bone loss, muscle loss, metabolic slowdown, and injury risk.

Start with the baseline: international and national guidelines now treat muscle-strengthening work as a core requirement, not an elective. The World Health Organization's 2020 guidance recommends that adults do muscle-strengthening activities involving major muscle groups on two or more days a week, alongside aerobic activity. The same principle runs through the U.S. CDC's current guidance. These are public-health recommendations designed around population disease risks, not gym culture.