Common Fitness Mistakes #2: Women Scared to “Bulk Up”!
Almost every women who touches a weight in a gym is scared she will end up looking like this:
Will she? No. Why Not? Several reasons. First, let us look at this issue from a somewhat odd angle, the male perspective. Many guys who go to the gym would love to look like the picture to the right.
Why don’t they? If you can answer that question, you’ve just answered part of the reason why women do not have to be scared of bulking up.
“Well,” you might say, “Many guys are not as big as the picture above because they haven’t been training long enough or haven’t been training optimally for putting on muscle. Also,” you may mention, ”Many guys do not eat enough to build muscle.” Those are all likely true and fantastic answers. Thus, my reply to the women scared of bulking up:
If men have a hard time building muscle surely women won’t magically get buff when they touch a barbell.
You’ve just highlighted three reasons why women do not need to be scared of building muscle; time, training methods and diet. And these three reasons all build upon the other, you cannot ignore any component. Without one, the bulky muscle building tower crumbles.
To build muscle, you must be patient. In the course of a year you can only realistically build a few pounds of muscle with diminishing returns as you continue to train. And this is assuming you are consistently training. Second, to build muscle you must be training a certain way. Training with pink dumbbells for 50 repetitions will not be a sufficiently challenging stimulus to build muscle. Third, you must be consuming enough calories. Muscle is calorically expensive, not only do you need a large amount of calories to build muscle, but you also need extra calories to maintain it. If you are not consistently eating large amounts of food, especially protein, you will not be building and maintaining a massive physique.
And here’s the kicker, even IF you did all of the above perfectly. You trained consistently with a style to maximize muscle gain with a diet high in overall healthy calories and protein, you still would not look like the picture at the beginning of this post!
Why? Hormones! You simply do not have the body chemistry to look like that. I would guess 90% of the pictures on the internet that intimidate women about lifting weights are of women who are using some type of steroid.
What can you look like as a woman who eats right and lifts weights? This is a good example:
Not so scary huh?
“But I just started working out and I feel so much bigger! It’s gross, I need to stop lifting weights.”
No, you need to be patient. The one time in your life that muscle gains will happen somewhat quickly is when you first start. They will taper off very quickly. Combine some initial muscle gain with a diet that is not yet in order and you have a recipe for someone feeling like they are bulking up. Also, you need to understand the relative space occupied by equal weights of fat and muscle. Please look at the image and see for yourself what equal amounts (both 5 pounds) of fat and muscle look like. Then tell me which one makes you bulky. Hint: It’s not the muscle.
A woman who is reading this blog likely started training with the goal of being “toned” and losing weight. The toned part usually means that they want their muscle to be slightly visible and firm. And losing weight typically means they want to fit in their clothes better, not just see a lower number on the scale. Why doesn’t the scale matter? Look again at the picture of equal amounts of fat and muscle. If you lost 5 pounds of fat and gained 5 pounds of muscle, would your pants fit better? Yes. Would you feel great? Most likely. But what would the scale be telling you? It would be lying and saying you made no progress.
Women, remember why you exercise, if your goal is to lose weight and be toned, you may be surprised to hear that lifting some heavier weights is the best option.
Don’t be scared.
