Lift
How Women Can Reclaim Their Physical Power and Transform Their Lives
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
From a professional bodybuilder and longtime Wall Street Journal reporter, a manifesto on how women can radically change their lives by tapping into their innate physical power
When Wall Street Journal reporter Anne Marie Chaker discovered bodybuilding as a hobby in midlife, she was recovering from a series of traumas, including postpartum depression, the end of her marriage, and the sudden death of her father. By throwing herself into strength training and stretching her body beyond what she imagined to be its limits, she began to regain confidence. Slowly, she challenged the deeply entrenched body insecurities she realized she’d long held, and her life changed in ways she never could have imagined.
In Lift, Chaker explores the forces that have led generations of women to internalize the message that they should make themselves smaller and explains why, instead, building muscle not only creates long lasting health, but also empowers us. Along the way, she highlights research that dismantles the conventional story of women’s bodies. As Chaker argues, strength training can help women find true power and confidence that goes far beyond how we look: it can dramatically shift how we move through the world, reshape how we respond to setbacks, and transform how we see our value. And science shows that increasing muscle mass can help protect women’s bodies from the effects of aging. Most important, it rewrites the message we send the next generation once and for all and will help girls step into their power from a young age.
Bridging narrative storytelling with empowering and actionable takeaways, including advice on how to start a training program, Lift is a rallying cry and inspiring guide to help women to get stronger for life.
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Chaker, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, delivers a vigorous introduction to strength training for women. She recalls how a chance encounter with a female bodybuilder convinced her to take up the sport in her early 40s, allowing her to unlearn her belief that "skinny equals success" as she put on muscle and ascended to the level of professional competitor. Encouraging women to follow her lead, Chaker notes that weight lifting combats the aging process by stimulating the production of satellite cells that regenerate muscle tissue and typically decline with age. Her seven-day workout routine recommends targeting the glutes on day one by performing squats with a barbell on one's shoulders and exercising the pectorals with bench presses on day three. The dietary guidance suggests that middle-aged women who lift regularly should consume about a gram of protein per pound of body weight. The detailed instructions on proper technique for such exercises as donkey kicks, kettlebell swings, and Romanian dead lifts provide all readers need to know before hitting the gym, and Chaker offers fascinating historical background on how the social idealization of thinness has cropped up whenever women push for greater political participation, revealing patriarchy's desire to "keep women in a more childlike, controlled state." The result is a valuable resource on bulking up.
