I dont want to get too bulky, I hear from a lot of women who begin strength training. Ah, if only it were that easy. Some women might have seen some freakshow bodybuilding pictures (both men and women) in a magazine or on TV, and think that thats their future if they start strength training. When the reality is quite different.
Men in the prime of their life, directly training to get as bulky as possible wish it was that easy today, they weigh 150 pounds, they go to the gym, do 1 strength training workout, and they wake up tomorrow, at a bulky 180. Whoa! Where did those 30 pounds of muscle come from???
The truth is that muscle gain is a very slow, difficult and laborious process. To give you some numbers: a woman can typically gain 20-25 pounds of muscle in her entire life. Of those 20-25 pounds, 10-12 will come in the first year. Five or six pounds in the second year, 2-3 pounds in the third year, and so on. Plus, keep in mind, that most women (men too) dont actually want to push their body to the limit of their genetic potential. Most women would actually be happy with how they look if they gained 6-10 pounds of muscle.
So lets do the math: if at the fastest rate, a woman can gain 10-12 pounds of muscle in the first year, thats 1 pound per month. And even thats a big if. She can only do that if:
- Shes training properly and progressively
- Shes eating adequate protein
- Shes recovering properly, and getting the right amount and quality of sleep
- How much cardio she does, plus the intensity and duration of that cardio (the less cardio, the easier it is to gain muscle, to an extent)
- Has the hormonal environment to support muscle growth
If any of those factors are missing, itll be much harder to gain muscle.
Once she reaches the amount of muscle that shes happy with, she can simply switch to maintenance mode, and hold on to what she has, instead of gaining more.
But lets hypothetically say that a woman did overdo it. What now? Muscle gain is a very slow process. Muscle loss is a very fast process. Lets say a woman did overdo it, and has more muscle than shed like what can she do? A few simple things:
- Stop the strength training (duh)
- Do more cardio
- Reduce the protein content
Presto! Two or three weeks later – muscle gone. Muscle that took months to gain is lost in weeks. See how easy it is to lose muscle? See how hard it is to gain muscle?
At this point, you might be thinking if its so easy to lose muscle, and so hard to gain it, why do female bodybuilders look so bulky? To look like a female bodybuilder, you need 3 things:
- Elite muscle-building genetics.
- Proper training: 1-3 hours a day, 4-6 days a week.
- Drugs.
That last point is not a joke, by the way. Its well-known that pretty much every bodybuilding champ (both men and women) since the early 1960s was on drugs. In fact, nowadays, they have 2 categories in bodybuilding:
- Natural bodybuilding: this is drug-tested.
- Pro bodybuilding: this is not drug-tested. Take whatever you want have at it.
So again, the 3 reasons female bodybuilders look so bulky is a combination of genetics, drugs and training. Having two out of the three is not enough to step on stage as a pro bodybuilder. Drugs and training? Youll look bulky but not competition-level bulky. Training and genetics? Also not enough. Same thing: youll look bulky but not competition-level bulky. Again, you need three out of three: genetics, drugs and training.
What happens when a woman with average genetics, and no drugs starts strength training 2-4 times per week? Well, she looks toned not bulky.
She looks like Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, Madonna, or heck, even our client Olessia, who I wrote about in this article.
So ladies dont be afraid to lift weights
