You know I tell it like it is... well let me be super clear about this: It is ok for women to lift weights and gain muscle. Muscle is metabolically active tissue. The more you have, the higher your resting metabolic rate (that is, the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn just sitting on the couch). If your goal is fat loss (notice I didn't say weight loss) you're going to have a much harder time if you aren't trying to build some muscle. But beyond that, strong is sexy!

If you're brand new to the gym, or even if you've been training for a while, you may not have seen the strength and muscle gains you were hoping for. Don't worry, you're about to find out why. 

Today, I talk to my own trainer, accredited exercise physiologist Zenia Wood. Zenia is extremely passionate about helping people move swiftly and pain free through education, rehabilitation and empowerment. Zenia specialises in musculoskeletal rehabilitation and in particular excels when working with people who experience pain or are struggling to see performance improvements in their movement and exercise both in and out of the gym. Zenia's clientele ranges from world champion bodybuilders and those with lower back pain when lifting, right through to mums trying to improve their fitness and daily strength. Make sure you head on over to Zenia's instagram @swiftmovementacademy and give her a follow!

This podcast is the first of a 2 part series with Zenia in which she shares her expert advice on building lean muscle and why so many people struggle to see the gains they want.

Next week, I'll have Zenia back to talk about weight training for beginners, her top tips to get started with resistance training, common mistakes she sees and how to fix your lifting technique.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please tag me and share it in your Insta stories and leave me a positive rating or review in the purple Apple Podcast app (in the rating & reviews section underneath the episode lists). This really helps my podcast get prioritised by Apple and helps me disseminate evidence based information to the people that need it the most! Don't forget to subscribe to my podcast so you never miss an episode!