Training For Life

Today, there are just as many women among the ranks of fitness buffs as there are men, and at any given time, in any given gym, you’ll find plenty of ladies working just as hard—if not harder—than the guys. The problem: most of these women are wasting their time. Don’t freak out on me for saying that yet— let me explain. These women are wasting their time because they are adhering to an archaic concept of strength training that basically claims that women should, for some inexplicable reason, lift weights differently than men. Namely: that a woman should work to “tone” her muscles

by doing low reps of light weights, but should avoid lifting more challenging weights because she will “bulk-up.”

Those two little words—“bulk up” can strike terror into many an exercising woman’s heart.

I’m here to lay your fears to rest, once and for all. Can you grow a beard? Did your voice start squeaking when you were a teenager? If not, you cannot “bulk-up.” Dedicated and enthusiastic male gym-goers are thrilled when they gain one or two pounds of muscle—so think how hard it would be for you to gain pounds and pounds of it.

Scientifically put, you don’t have enough testosterone to bulk up unless you use anabolic steroids and hoist weights three or four hours a day. That’s what those female bodybuilders have to do. You could never get that muscular just “accidentally” from following a good, steady weightlifting routine.

Let’s learn a little more about testosterone. First, understand that when you lift weights, you are essentially damaging your muscles. It’s not as bad as it sounds, though, because your body will get the idea that this sort of thing might become a habit of yours, and it will rebuild your muscles stronger than they were before. To do that, your body uses a little process called protein synthesis, wherein it weaves new protein fibers into the strands of the muscle. So where does testosterone come in? Testosterone magnifies the rate and extent of muscle rebuilding by acting as a chemical signal to your muscle tissue, basically giving the go-ahead to begin protein synthesis. As a woman, you do produce some testosterone—but unless you have a rare genetic abnormality you will never naturally produce as much as a man. So you can never get brawny and bulky—you can and will just get firm, defined, and strong.

Women—like men—can gain about 20-40 percent increase in muscle strength after a few months of regular weightlifting. How much bigger your muscles actually grow depends on your natural physique. There are three different body types—ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph—and each one has a genetically predetermined capability for building muscle. But here’s my advice to a woman scared to lift weights—if you notice that an exercise, a weight number, or a rep number is changing the shape of your body in a way that you don’t like—just stop doing it. Muscle shrinks faster than you might realize. And anyway, as you now know, you can’t turn into a hulking she-male overnight..

Remember, though, that you absolutely in no way can “tone” your muscles by exercising. Low reps with light weights are mostly useless because not only do they not give you the aesthetic results they promise you, they also don’t really make you stronger. Your body in all honesty would rather not do anything it doesn’t have to, and low weights won’t challenge it enough for it to bother rebuilding your muscles. Again, not to get too scientific here, but muscle “tone” simply refers to the amount of continual reflexive contractions occurring in your muscles on the microscopic level. You can’t change that, with or without exercise. You can, though, carve curves and contours into your body by building muscle, and in doing so create hourglass proportions for yourself. And last time I checked, there was nothing manly about that.

Remember to consult your doctor before taking on any new exercise programs.  Please feel free to e-mail me with questions or commets

BG