weight lifting for women-question about arms

mmapags

To get your arms big you need to lift heavy with lower reps. if you want your arms toned but not bulky, you need to cut the weight right down and do alot of reps.

I'm thinking you got this backwards bro. Lifting heavy will build strength but not bulk. Lifting lower weight with 8 to 15 reps will cause hypertrophy which builds bulk but not nessesarily strength. There are many body builders who are big but not that strong as well as many strength atheletes who are strong and not that big.

To the OP, keep lifting heavy and don't drop your body fat too low and you won't get bulk. As you mentioned, you'd have a hard time getting bulky anyway as a woman.

Edit to add: She doesn't look bulky as much as cut. You'd have to work to look like that. As others have suggested, some carb starving and dehaydration probably going on there.

oilphins

Sorry mmapags, Not to rain on your parade, but you are wrong. I've talked to many personal trainers about this and my brother in law has been a body builder for 15 years. I do this all the time and my arms are not huge but very toned. Your arms cannot get as big if your going lighter than heavier.

superstarcassie

The heavier I lift, the smaller and more defined my arms get. I like seeing the definition, verses the blobby shape they used to be. Don't be afraid to lift heavy. If you feel that your arms are already too big, they may have fat covering the muscle. The lifting will help get rid of that- thus showing off what muscle you already have.

cjv428

I've recently encountered the same problem and I decided to just focus my strength training on my legs and butt for the moment rather than arms, in addition to compress lifts. I'm more concerned with those areas anyway.

DocSavage01

What are the best weight lifting moves to get rid of that Underarm Jiggle!?? I'd like to hear suggestions!! (please and thanks!)

superstarcassie

Check out the New Rules of Lifting for Women- A full body lifting program with heavy lifting is the best way to lower body fat percentage, thus eliminating the jiggle! I have way less arm jiggle, even with my loose skin after heavy lifting!

qtiekiki

Her arms aren't bulky. They are muscular. If and when your arms get to be like hers, they will be less bulky than your arms now. I am pretty sure she prepped for the appearance and made her muscles show more than they do normally.

missym357

I understand what you mean. I don't want manly looking arms either, but I have to agree with the above posters that (in that picture, at least) her arms are defined and pumped but in reality probably look suprisingly small. I know that I have scragly little arms, but I lift and have low body fat, so I look more muscular than I actually am- and I especially look very cut right after I lift. I have no doubt at all that she has more muscle mass in her arms though, but she works very hard to have the muscle mass that she has. I doubt an everyday person is going to acheive that without working very hard at it.

kdiamond

Jamie Eason's body is her profession. You will not look like her from going to the gym 3x a week for 30 minutes.

This ^^^ and also...her arms don't look like that when relaxed. It is only when they are pumped up. Mine look like that pumped up (not quite to that extent, but close) too, but when they are relaxed they look completely normal and just toned and lean.

wackyfunster

The "bigness" that most women fear is not a function of muscle, but of low body fat and water-retention/hydration levels. If you are a woman at 13% body fat, and take steps to flush out any excess water from your body, you will look like she-hulk. If you are at 15%+ body fat and don't, you will not. Most women will never get below 18% body fat. Having "huge" (relatively) arm muscles, may mean that at 18% body fat if you rub preparation H on your arms they will look massive. It won't make you look huge under any normal circumstances until very low body fat.

Hope that helps.

mmapags

Sorry mmapags, Not to rain on your parade, but you are wrong. I've talked to many personal trainers about this and my brother in law has been a body builder for 15 years. I do this all the time and my arms are not huge but very toned. Your arms cannot get as big if your going lighter than heavier.

Not sure what trainers your talking to but either they don't know thier stuff or you are not hearing them correctly. See links below;
http://www.livestrong.com/article/436092-mass-vs-strength/
http://www.muscleprodigy.com/strength-reps-vs.-mass-reps-arcl-892.html

Pasted from the 2nd link:
"If you want to get bigger, what sort of routine must you use? How do you "tone" your muscles? In many cases, I do believe that there is much to be learned in the arena of exercising and how many reps or sets to do and how to build strength as opposed to big muscles. It used to be that everyone believed that you do fewer reps to make your muscles bigger and a great number of reps to tone your muscles. Oddly enough, this is exactly opposite from the reality. It is important to distinguish between muscle tone and muscle mass in order to understand how reps work for each. Rusty Moore gives a balloon analogy in his course Visual Impact. Like filling up a water balloon, getting that bodybuilder physique is not difficult at all to do. Getting dense, toned muscles would be like making the balloon rubber thicker which ultimately makes it denser and stronger. Doing a smaller number of reps with heavier weights is the optimal way to gain strength. The most vital part of the whole affair is that you cannot wear yourself out too much. Muscles must not feel extremely tired when your session is done. Always keep one rep in the tank. Making your muscles more compact and not flabby looking is what you get with this kind of work out. You only need somewhere between three to five repetitions to build up your strength. If you do between five and ten sets then you won't hit muscle failure.

If you want to get your muscles to be bigger, you have to do high rep training to failure. By exhausting your muscles, you force them to grow larger. At the same time, if you get bigger muscles, you will look slightly softer and not as streamlined. Muscle mass training should be done with about 12-15 reps. Keep in mind that you have to absolutely wear out your muscles in this exercise. So, not as many sets are needed even if you could do them."

LorinaLynn

Jamie's arms look more muscular that you'd like in THAT photo, but that's not how she looks all the time. That's, as others have said, when she's at really low body fat at a convention.

Here she is with slightly higher body fat:



Here's my results from heavy strength training. My arms just got smaller and tighter.

TrophyWifeSass

Your arms are big because there is fat on them.. you lose the fat, and they will get smaller. Her arms look like that because she has really low body fat in that picture.

If you don't want arms like that, then don't let your body fat get that low.. that simple.

^truth

Yanicka1

Sorry mmapags, Not to rain on your parade, but you are wrong. I've talked to many personal trainers about this and my brother in law has been a body builder for 15 years. I do this all the time and my arms are not huge but very toned. Your arms cannot get as big if your going lighter than heavier.

Oh if your bodybuilder brother in law told you that, I imagine everyone else is wrong :sick:

I lift heavy and my arms are tone but not bulky. I don't look like my avatar when I do not flex

dmpizza

I think you are putting the cart before the horse.
Start the program and see how it goes.