Feeling Less Intimidated in the Gym

Just picked up the latest Women's Health and saw the article they have on feeling less intimidated in the gym. Jen Ator did a great job with it but I wanted to add my two cents to help women to feel less intimidated in the gym as they are picking up my book and getting ready to hit the weights. So listen up girls!

1. Have a plan. Go into the gym with your plan of attack. If you know exactly what you are going to do you can confidently walk over to the weight training area and get to work. Wear your headphones so you don't even have to acknowledge that there are intimidating men around. Go into your zone and get your workout done. Photo copy phase one of the Fit Female Workout plan if you don't want to carry the book around with you (although I am hoping that gyms across America have women walking around carrying my book with it lying open in the weight training area). If you don't have your copy of the book yet- What are you waiting for?!?!?!?!

Click Here to get it NOW!!!

2. No judgements! Know that the men in the gym will only be intrigued by a confident woman walking in to the gym and heading to the weights instead of to her usual stair master or treadmill. The men in the gym won't mind if a female starts encroaching on their area especially if she has a plan and knows what she is doing. Men will welcome us into the weight training area and soon enough we will out number them. That's how it is in our gym. Check it out-

3. Even if you are terrified and totally intimidated there is a saying- You should do something that makes you uncomfortable once a day- Get out of your comfort zone, it is good for you! And know that it won't last long and probably you'll start to enjoy yourself and feel comfortable. Know that your workout will take you less than an hour so get in, get it done and get out of there.

4. Stay focused on the fact that you are boosting your metabolism and going to have an after burn effect that will burn calories for the next 24-48 hours and don't worry about what anyone else in the gym thinks.

5. If you are still not sure about hitting the weights at your gym tonight then all you need is a bench and some dumbbells and you can get everything done in Phase One of The Female Body Breakthrough Program. Grab a bench and some dumbbells and get a corner to yourself and get it done.

Soon enough your body will be transforming before your eyes, you'll be hooked on the feeling of empowerment and confidence lifting weights gives you and the gym will be your domain.

Come on girls! Let's take over the strength training floor and stop letting those men intimidate us! There are way more benefits for us to lift weights than there are for men.

I have decided to continue offering the FREE GIFT of Video Coaching for ANYONE who bought my book so if you missed out last week you can still take advantage of Video Coaching with me.

Click Here to get Free Video Coaching with me for 3 months to get your Female Body Breakthrough Started!

That moment

The reason I do what I do is to see that moment in my client's when they realize they CAN do whatever they set out to do. That moment when they have an "Aha!" and finally figure out what works to feel the way they want to feel - confident and empowered. This weekend one of the members of my website, www.thefemalebodybreakthrough.com, did her first Powerlifting Competition. She had trained for marathons in the past never achieving her fit female body.

Watch this video and you'll get to experience her moment. You can also see that her body has transformed to be fit, toned and smaller than the picture of her below when she was running.

What she says about her moment-

"Thanks Rachel! I love that I finally have a "thing" that I can do, I enjoy doing it and am looking forward to getting better in! Not to boot that it makes me smaller while doing it! I attached a before picture of me this summer before I started in your training program. Of course it would be of me running in a race and proving that running doesn't make you smaller!"- Roxane G.

Thank you so much, Roxane, for letting me be a part of your journey and your moment! Keep it up girl! You rock and will inspire others!

The Female Body Breakthrough on Tour.....

In this day and age when a book comes out instead of a Book Tour....I went on a Blog Tour! And it was so much fun being able to share my message with so many audiences at once without even getting on a plane. I owe a big thank you to all of my hosts. Each one of them went above and beyond my expectations.

Go on my blog tour for yourself and see why you need to get my book if you haven't already. You don't even have to pack any bags or get on a plane!

StrengthCoach.com Blog

The Blog of Valerie Waters

Precision Nutrition

The Blog of Coach Dos

Turbulence Training Blog

Nick Grantham's Blog

Pat, Nick and Jim

The Blog of Thomas Plummer

Skwigg Blog

Naked Nutrition Blog

Stumptuous

My very own Husband, Alwyn Cosgrove's Blog

Athletic Body System

Slim People in Progress Blog

The Blog of Paula Owens

The Blog of Cassandra Forsythe

The Fit Cast

Fitness and Spice

If you haven't got the book yet, what are you waiting for?

A message for you about my book launch

A message for you....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUZTvuCjuZk&feature=youtube_gdata

Go to www.orderthefemalebodybreakthroughtoday.com

My book on the shelf at Barnes and Noble!!!

Check it out! My book on the shelf at Barnes and Noble! Today it was released!

**** SPECIAL BONUS

Buy The Female Body Breakthrough by going to www.orderthefemalebodybreakthroughtoday.com on November 12th and collect your FREE GIFTS! You will get a poster with The Fit Female Credo mailed to you along with Video Coaching with Rachel Cosgrove to get you started on your journey and after buying the book on the 12th Rachel will share her #1 Secret to get you started along with 5 Fitness, Nutrition and Mindset related E-books to give you even more support on your journey.

IMPORTANT- The FREE GIFTS are only available if you buy the book from Amazon on November 12th.

Week One from Flab to Abs

Week One after my Half Ironman went great. I bumped up my intensity and dropped my volume and I can already see my flab turning to abs. This past week I did 2 strength workouts (taken directly from my book) , 2 metabolic workouts (also taken directly from my book) and 1 interval session on the treadmill along with eating what I have in my book as the Base Phase Nutrition Rules which basically means eating "clean" 90% of the time. I did have 4 splurges including Mexican food one night complete with chips and Guac(my fav!) and a Corona.

This week I managed to lose 2 pounds of fat and a pound of water while starting to put some of the muscle I may have lost back on. On my way back to my Fit Female Body! Let me tell you- The programs and philosophies in my book absolutely work and I am real world proof! I know they work but it always amazes me how when I switch gears from doing high volume endurance training to strength training and metabolic workouts how quickly my body responds.

If you have been spinning your wheels or doing hours and hours of cardio - STOP! Get my book this week and switch gears and get your fit female body! You'll feel better within a week and already start to see your body transform.

**** SPECIAL BONUS
Buy The Female Body Breakthrough by going to www.orderthefemalebodybreakthroughtoday.com on Thursday, November 12th and collect your FREE GIFTS! You will get a poster with The Fit Female Credo mailed to you along with Video Coaching with Rachel Cosgrove for the first 3 months of your journey to get you started and after buying the book on the 12th Rachel will share her #1 Secret to get you started along with 5 Fitness, Nutrition and Mindset related E-books to give you even more support on your journey.

IMPORTANT- The FREE GIFTS are only available if you buy the book from Amazon on November 12th.

A few women at our gym "wasting" squat racks...

This is an average day in our gym. Women lifting and all looking good doing it! This is how all gyms should be with women feeling uninimidated, totally comfortable and transforming their bodies feeling confident and empowered.....

"Waste a Squat Rack"

A few weeks ago I did a seminar at one of Thomas Plummer's events, The Rockstar Personal Development event he put on in Chicago. I was speaking to a room full of gym owners and I spoke about what women will be looking for in a gym over the next year and how there will be a shift. I pointed out that over the last year I have been asked by magazine's such as Women's Health and Shape to provide information on how to help women to feel less intimidated in the gym. I was also offered two offers for my book on strength training for women and I recently contributed to a book that will be out next year with the Editor in Chief of Women's Health on how to Look Better Naked- all of these programs and what I get asked for have all been on a trend of women finally "getting" the benefits of lifting weights, "real" weights.

Most gyms still have a Women's Only Section of chrome dumbbells and a butt blaster or inner/outer thigh machine and do not have any area where women can lift "real" weights and not feel intimidated or uncomfortable. My suggestion to these gyms was to make a corner of their gym a "functional" weight training area where there is a rack, a pulley machine, dumbbells and a bench that women would feel comfortable using for many of these programs that are hitting newsstands and book shelves.

One of the male gym owners in the audience blurted out- "You want us to WASTE A SQUAT RACK...." I think I had fire come out of my ears and know that the look on my face probably wasn't too happy. I said, "Excuse me?" "Waste a Squat Rack on women?"

Pretty soon I had every woman in the room, whether they had ever even used a squat rack or not...passionately defending their squat rack and that WE WOMEN NEED A SQUAT RACK and It is not a waste!

Anyway, it was a pretty good exclamation point to my point that most gym owners don't give their female members what they need to change their bodies and as women are catching on that strength training is necessary for them we will be looking for gyms that give us more than chrome dumbbells and a pink butt blaster machine.

6 Weeks to Attack the Fat

One week ago yesterday I completed my 4th Half Ironman Triathlon. In addition to 4 Half Ironman's I have completed one full Ironman in 2007. My tales of my Ironman are documented in Chapter 3 of my book, The Female Body Breakthrough, which will be out next week.

If you have been following my blog or read any of my articles you know that in my research and also in THE RESEARCH, I have found that as I train for these longer distance events and add more and more volume of steady state aerobic training my body changes and not the way I want it to. I don't lose weight and I don't fit in a smaller size in fact my weight and size usually stay about the same, despite a high training volume, but my appearance is different. I lose my abs and don't have the definition I am used to seeing and overall end up feeling a bit "soft" by the time of the event. THE RESEARCH also shows this to be true that using higher intensity, lower volume is the answer for fat loss.

Although I am in great physical shape, and am able to swim a mile, bike 56 miles and run a half marathon all in one 6 hour workout, for all of the training I have been doing my body doesn't look it's best. Again, I am the same weight and size and probably look the same in clothes covered up but won't be caught training in a half top for a few weeks.

I always start training for these long distance events and for some reason think- "This time it will be different, I will really keep lifting heavy and watch what I eat and will be able to keep my abs throughout the whole training and will do a Half Ironman looking like a Figure Competitor." I know many of you have similar thoughts because I get emails all the time- "How can I train for a marathon and lose body fat crossing the finish line looking defined?" I actually did an interview on this very subject a while back- Click here to read. And in that interview I state- "My ultimate goal is to cross the finish line of a triathlon looking like a fitness competitor and be able to maintain it but I don't know if it is possible. I am still working on that one..."

But, once again as my training progressed for this Half Ironman my abs got softer and I could not keep my definition no matter how hard I tried. It is probably a hint that the majority of people who cross the finish line of an endurance event have a softer appearance, even if they are thin they usually don't look defined.

So as for my "Ultimate Goal" I have realized that it just may not be possible especially when training for Half Ironman and Ironman distance. Training for a Half Ironman and training to look like a "Fit Female" are two totally different and opposite goals. To get the look of a Fit Female, as I discuss in my book, you want you have to challenge your body and keep it from adapting with intense exercise, on the other hand to complete an endurance event your goal is for your body to adapt to the workouts so that you can complete the mileage at a steady state but adapting means you burn less and less calories.

The key for me is to periodize my year and my training so that after completing a Half Ironman, which for me was totally worth it to have the satisfaction of completing the event and being a part of contributing to the Challenged Athletes Foundation so my niece can participate in sports and be a part of what they have to offer, I have a 6 week Attack the Fat Phase.

Now it is time to switch gears and bump up my intensity and drop my volume and get the definition I am used to having back and Attack the Fat. The plan is 6 weeks of two metabolic workouts and three strength workouts along with eating healthy, NO steady state cardio. I did this same plan of attack after my last triathlon and within 6 weeks was back to the way I like to look.

This is the exact same plan that is laid out in my book, The Female Body Breakthrough, which has 16 weeks of strength and metabolic workouts. This is also the exact type of plan we recommend for the members of our gym who most of them perform 1-2 strength workouts a week and 1-2 metabolic workouts and their bodies transform to look the way they want in 6-12 weeks.

You can also be on your way to reaching your ultimate goal and the good news is that you do not need to do hours and hours of steady state aerobic training to have the body you want, in fact it could work against you. Give me 2-4 hours a week.

I'll be blogging on my progress every Monday for the next 6 weeks as my body transforms back to the defined, strong Fit Female "look" I prefer. This is the same Fit Female look I discuss in my book. Get my book next week, start following the programs and join me on your own Fit Female Transformation. I'll try to get some pics up for you.