I can guess the answer on your minds, dead lovely forum members. “Women don’t have to worry about bulking up because they can’t. Insufficient hormones.”
Sometimes girls come to the gym and the trainer tells me to take care, he’ll be back soon (I don’t know why they are paid for). You can guess girls’ goals; Just to be tight and in a good shape like celebrities. When I tell them about weight lifting, they freak out. “I don’t want muscular, like manly arms!” And I answer them with the classical “Women don’t have to worry about bulking up.” Because I know the program they’ll follow won’t have heavy bench presses, rows, etc. Even if they were given such a program, they wouldn’t go heavy.
But is that real? A while ago, I was watching European Weightlifting Championship. A freaking 18 year-old girl, named Tatiana Kashirina, appeared on the stage. Guess how much did she weight? 89 kg/195 lbs. It was amazing, she came and did a clean and jerk with 150 kg. She came again and tried 155 kg. Successful again. Failed at 160, but it was not over. She did a snatch with 117, 122, 125 kg. All successful.
Now before the arguments like “Women add muscle mass much slower men”come up, I have a question to all the guys around there, anybody at the age of 18 and 89 kg? I told you how strong she was, so most of it is muscle. And olympic weightlifters have to be totally clean. No drugs allowed. Then we have powerlifter women. They can beat you up. That even proves the myth that you need 8-12 rep range to gain muscle. “3-4 reps don’t build muscle!” It helps you get stronger, true. And if you do 3-4 sets of 3-4 reps, it won’t build muscle. It’s going to recruit nervous system enough for you to get stronger, but it won’t stimulate muscles enough for hypertrophy. But increase the volume, and do 10 sets of 3-4 reps, then see what happens!
That’s not all though. I haven’t only seen on TV, there are girls who put significant muscle mass that I know in person. Let me tell you the most recent example. I have a friend, she was 110 lbs with 9.5% bodyfat. A rich gal, going to a classy gym with all latest equipments. I’ve seen her measurements, and was surprised that it was written on a paper, not on gold disk.
Anyway, last month I saw her measurements again, still on a printed paper. She had put 9lbs in 6 months, keeping her body fat percentage same, and she had legs to prove it, thanks to squats. She is a freak though. Are you a scientist, need trainees to test? Just call her, she’ll jump into it. But anyway, can’t say this is any slower than a guy, can you?
Now back to the thought, “Women don’t have to worry about bulking up.” Sometimes people come and ask questions on this forum. “I want to get lean, but not too bulked up like a bodybuilder. Just some definition is what I need.” What do we say? “Bulking up is not easy, so don’t worry about it. It’s not going to happen over a night.” This says something: Bulking up is not easy in general, the fact that it needs effort of years applies to everybody, women and men. Look at Svetlana Kuznetsova, her legs are built like mine. Her shoulders are bigger than most of you. But she spend years in academies, camps, she had goals, how many women would do that?
I’ve read a few studies that say “Muscle distribution is different between men and women. Women seem to build lower body in a similar rate with men, but much slower muscle increase is seen when it comes to upper body.”
I agree with the first sentence. Muscle distribution, general structure is different. But women build lower body faster for one reason: They work their butt everyday! Everytime I see a girl at the gym, she is doing leg raises, split leg squats or crunches, unless she is on the treadmill. Just like I find “Too low reps won’t build a muscle” a myth, I also find “High reps won’t build muscle” a myth. Many people send their routines here, it includes crunches to failure 2-3 times a day. If higher reps didn’t build muscle, most people wouldn’t be able to build abs. And when it comes to abs, women work like men. Crunches, crunches, crunches. Men work to build their abs, women work to get a thinner waist, but they do the same thing. Actually, women get their waist thicker that way.
You can ask, then why don’t do most women have abs? I’ll ask, how many of you guys have abs? We know that the key to abs is low body fat. If you have big bulky abs, you need to get down to 12% at least, so that you have abs showing when flexed. But even leanest women have more than 12% body fat. They are supposed to have more fat. And even many models with anorexia have that much fat. They burn all the muscle they have by refusing to eat, they become skinny-fat. But because you can count how many bones they have, you can’t say they have some body fat. However, if a women works like an athlete, does resistance training anf gets down to body percentage of Lolo Jones or Naide Gomes, she will have abs. Like they do.
However, does this mean I’m saying women shouldn’t do lift weights? No, totally the opposite. In fact, I’d say “Screw aerobics and hit the weight room!”. I have two reasons to say this: Firstly, I know no women will ignore aerobics. Secondly, the myth is that women will turn into a creepy bodybuilder as soon as she touches weights is a lot more popular than the myth that women can’t build muscle. Of course, women can not turn into a bodybuilder as soon as they touch weights, but none of us turns into Ronnie Coleman the day we start weight lifting. Girls are right though, there are so many ugly female bodybuilders.
So what’s my exact stance? Women should weight lifts. They should get strong. If there is a bodypart they want to increase, they should do it. If you just jog on a treadmill, you’ll be skinny fat. If you want to have a firm, strong body, you need resistance training. Like we all know, women’s body structure is different. So is their fat distribution. If you just train everywhere proportionally, and don’t get your body fat percentage below healthy limits, there is no way you’ll look like men. If you go down to 6% bodyfat or something silly, you won’t only look like men, but it will be unhealthy. And make sure you keep your rep-set range sensible. If you train hardcore like men, doing 6-8 reps to failure, then drop sets, rest&pause, pre or post-exhaustion techniques, nobody can guarantee you won’t gain muscle more than you want. Women’s testosterone levels can be 10 times less than men, but testosterone is not the only thing for bodybuilding and testosterone is not used only to build muscle. You know there is a lot more to it. At least I guarantee you that if a man and woman does exact same way of training and eats same, the man will not get 10 times bigger and faster results. The difference won’t be THAT huge. Main problem is that women believe they're supposed to be weaker. Sure, men are naturally stronger but look at this forum, it's almost guys place (Not including Goldie
). You don't even need big muscles to get stronger, it apllies to both men and women.
Forget about bodybuilding, we need stronger women for a stronger world. I watched a conference about women rights, and a poet showed up (You don’t know him). He was known for supporting women on the issue, that’s why he was going to make a speech. The announcer woman called him to the stage, and asked, “Okay sir, tell us what you think about women.” Everybody was ready to hear something nice, but he said “I don’t think about anything, I just...”
Yes, he used the F word. Everybody was shocked. Then he added: “I’m a man, yet you expect me to help you. Sorry but this is how us men think. If you want your rights, you need to fight for it. You have to force us to help you. Or men will be pleased with the situation of this patriarchal world.”
So go and train girls, to get the control of the world, back to the old matriarchal world, where women were so vigorous but looked as feminine as a goddess!
