Picture a gym ten years ago: the weights room was largely a male-dominated space, with women mostly doing cardio exercise. Fast-forward to today and you’re likely to see women of all ages and backgrounds confidently navigating weights equipment.

This is more than just anecdotal. According to data from the Australian Sports Commission, the number of women participating in weightlifting (either competitively or not) grew nearly five-fold between 2016 and 2022.

Women are discovering what research has long shown: strength training offers benefits beyond sculpted muscles.

Health benefits

Osteoporosis, a disease in which the bones become weak and brittle, affects more women than men. Strength training increases bone density, a crucial factor for preventing osteoporosis, especially for women negotiating menopause.

Strength training also improves insulin sensitivity, which means your body gets better at using insulin to manage blood sugar levels, reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes. Regular strength training contributes to better heart health too.

There’s a mental health boost as well. Strength training has been linked to reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Improved confidence and body image

Unlike some forms of exercise where progress can feel elusive, strength training offers clear and tangible measures of success. Each time you add more weight to a bar, you are reminded of your ability to meet your goals and conquer challenges.

This sense of achievement doesn’t just stay in the gym – it can change how women see themselves. A recent study found women who regularly lift weights often feel more empowered to make positive changes in their lives and feel ready to face life’s challenges outside the gym.

Strength training also has the potential to positively impact body image. In a world where women are often judged on appearance, lifting weights can shift the focus to function.

Instead of worrying about the number on the scale or fitting into a certain dress size, women often come to appreciate their bodies for what they can do. “Am I lifting more than I could last month?” and “can I carry all my groceries in a single trip?” may become new measures of physical success.

Lifting weights can also be about challenging outdated ideas of how women “should” be. Qualitative research I conducted with colleagues found that, for many women, strength training becomes a powerful form of rebellion against unrealistic beauty standards. As one participant told us:

I wanted something that would allow me to train that just didn’t have anything to do with how I looked.

Society has long told women to be small, quiet and not take up space. But when a woman steps up to a barbell, she’s pushing back against these outdated rules. One woman in our study said:

We don’t have to […] look a certain way, or […] be scared that we can lift heavier weights than some men. Why should we?

This shift in mindset helps women see themselves differently. Instead of worrying about being objects for others to look at, they begin to see their bodies as capable and strong. Another participant explained:

Powerlifting changed my life. It made me see myself, or my body. My body wasn’t my value, it was the vehicle that I was in to execute whatever it was that I was executing in life.

This newfound confidence often spills over into other areas of life. As one woman said:

I love being a strong woman. It’s like going against the grain, and it empowers me. When I’m physically strong, everything in the world seems lighter.

Feeling inspired? Here’s how to get started

1. Take things slow

Begin with bodyweight exercises like squats, lunges and push-ups to build a foundation of strength. Once you’re comfortable, add external weights, but keep them light at first. Focus on mastering compound movements, such as deadlifts, squats and overhead presses. These exercises engage multiple joints and muscle groups simultaneously, making your workouts more efficient.

2. Prioritise proper form

Always prioritise proper form over lifting heavier weights. Poor technique can lead to injuries, so learning the correct way to perform each exercise is crucial. To help with this, consider working with an exercise professional who can provide personalised guidance and ensure you’re performing exercises correctly, at least initially.

3. Consistency is key

Like any fitness regimen, consistency is key. Two to three sessions a week are plenty for most women to see benefits. And don’t be afraid to occupy space in the weights room – remember you belong there just as much as anyone else.

4. Find a community

Finally, join a community. There’s nothing like being surrounded by a group of strong women to inspire and motivate you. Engaging with a supportive community can make your strength-training journey more enjoyable and rewarding, whether it’s an in-person class or an online forum.

Are there any downsides?

Gym memberships can be expensive, especially for specialist weightlifting gyms. Home equipment is an option, but quality barbells and weightlifting equipment can come with a hefty price tag.

Also, for women juggling work and family responsibilities, finding time to get to the gym two to three times per week can be challenging.

If you’re concerned about getting too “bulky”, it’s very difficult for women to bulk up like male bodybuilders without pharmaceutical assistance.

The main risks come from poor technique or trying to lift too much too soon – issues that can be easily avoided with some guidance.

Erin Kelly, Lecturer and PhD Candidate, Discipline of Sport and Exercise Science, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Roles of health professionals are still unfortunately often stuck in the past. That is, before the shift of education of nurses and other health professionals into universities in the 1980s. So many are still not working to their full scope of practice.

There has been some expansion of roles in recent years – including pharmacists prescribing (under limited circumstances) and administering a wider range of vaccinations.

But the recently released paper from an independent Commonwealth review on health workers’ “scope of practice” identifies the myriad of barriers preventing Australians from fully benefiting from health professionals’ skills.

These include workforce design (who does what, where and how roles interact), legislation and regulation (which often differs according to jurisdiction), and how health workers are funded and paid.

There is no simple quick fix for this type of reform. But we now have a sensible pathway to improve access to care, using all health professionals appropriately.

A new vision for general practice

I recently had a COVID booster. To do this, I logged onto my general practice’s website, answered the question about what I wanted, booked an appointment with the practice nurse that afternoon, got jabbed, was bulk-billed, sat down for a while, and then went home. Nothing remarkable at all about that.

But that interaction required a host of facilitating factors. The Victorian government regulates whether nurses can provide vaccinations, and what additional training the nurse requires. The Commonwealth government has allowed the practice to be paid by Medicare for the nurse’s work. The venture capitalist practice owner has done the sums and decided allocating a room to a practice nurse is economically rational.

The future of primary care is one involving more use of the range of health professionals, in addition to GPs.

It would be good if my general practice also had a physiotherapist, who I could see if I had back pain without seeing the GP, but there is no Medicare rebate for this. This arrangement would need both health professionals to have access to my health record. There also needs to be trust and good communication between the two when the physio might think the GP needs to be alerted to any issues.

This vision is one of integrated primary care, with health professionals working in a team. The nurse should be able to do more than vaccination and checking vital signs. Do I really need to see the GP every time I need a prescription renewed for my regular medication? This is the nub of the “scope of practice” issue.

How about pharmacists?

An integrated future is not the only future on the table. Pharmacy owners especially have argued that pharmacists should be able to practise independently of GPs, prescribing a limited range of medications and dispensing them.

This will inevitably reduce continuity of care and potentially create risks if the GP is not aware of what other medications a patient is using.

But a greater role for pharmacists has benefits for patients. It is often easier and cheaper for the patient to see a pharmacist, especially as bulk billing rates fall, and this is one of the reasons why independent pharmacist prescribing is gaining traction.

Every five years or so the government negotiates an agreement with the Pharmacy Guild, the organisation of pharmacy owners, about how much pharmacies will be paid for dispensing medications and other services. These agreements are called “Community Pharmacy Agreements”. Paying pharmacists independent prescribing may be part of the next agreement, the details of which are currently being negotiated.

GPs don’t like competition from this new source, even though there will be plenty of work around for GPs into the foreseeable future. So their organisations highlight the risks of these changes, reopening centuries old turf wars dressed up as concerns about safety and risk.

Who pays for all this?

Funding is at the heart of disputes about scope of practice. As with many policy debates, there is merit on both sides.

Clearly the government must increase its support for comprehensive general practice. Existing funding of fee-for-service medical benefits payments must be redesigned and supplemented by payments that allow practices to engage a range of other health professionals to create health-care teams.

This should be the principal direction of primary care reform, and the final report of the scope of practice review should make that clear. It must focus on the overall goal of better primary care, rather than simply the aspirations of individual health professionals, and working to a professional’s full scope of practice in a team, not a professional silo.

In parallel, governments – state and federal – must ensure all health professionals are used to their best of their abilities. It is a waste to have highly educated professionals not using their skills fully. New funding arrangements should facilitate better access to care from all appropriately qualified health professionals.

In the case of prescribing, it is possible to reconcile the aspirations of pharmacists and the concerns of GPs. New arrangements could be that pharmacists can only renew medications if they have agreements with the GP and there is good communication between them. This may be easier in rural and suburban areas, where the pharmacists are better known to the GPs.

The second issues paper points to the complexity of achieving scope of practice reforms. However, it also sets out a sensible path to improve access to care using all health professionals appropriately.

Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.