Muscle on a Woman

As you can see from the above posts, you are going to get a mixed reaction. When I was in my prime physique I had men tell me I was intimidating cause I lifted *heavy*. (I still think there is a big misconception of what *heavy* is for a woman.) I also had men stop me in a store and tell me how amazing i looked. Ive had men/women blatently ignore me at the gym cause I worked out in the weight room. But I also made some wonderful friends in the weight room.

I think some ppl have different ideas of what mascular is..what toned is.. what skinny is... Just like the poster earlier commented about madonna's arms.

I stopped caring what ppl thought... Got used to the positive and negative comments/stares and kept on liftin

feel free to creep my profile. all 100% natural... 110% effort and 120% hard work!!!

I definitely just creeped and GIRL YOU LOOK AMAZING!

I have been doing lifting for 3-4 weeks now and I love the results so far. I think muscle of girls just shows hard they look after their selves without starving their selves!

Exactly.

And when someone says its obsessive to train etc... look at reality - an hour or two at the gym vs:

-Several hours in front of the TV each night
-Drinking until you cannot work
-Eat so that you gain massive mounds of fat
-Hours on video games

You get the point! Is it not better for one to keep oneself healthy - you get one body - best to keep it running the best you can - you are in it and use it more than ANYTHING you will own in your life time and maybe, your body, will be depended on by your kids and family too, so not to fail and get ill.

I get told I'm obsessive because I do it 3 times a week as well as a lot of cardio. I don't find that obsessive and I certainly don't find my eating habits obsessive (my boyfriend tells me this). Just because he sits around eating a large Domino's pizza and watch TV, he thinks I'm obsessive! I'm the one that looks after myself. He tells me he doesn't want me to look butch. What a weird thing to say! (I also have more muscle than him now). But I take pride in my appearance and I also take pride in choosing the right foods and the right portions.

Bingo. Until you point things out... people miss what other could consider obsessive.

For a woman to look butch, thats a WHOLE lot of work.

A lot of times people immediately think of the bodybuilding competition pics. First off, the women cut severely before a comp, so they have very little BF, they are body painted, and they are extremely pumped. When they are in off-season, and not pumped and painted for a show, they look more natural, and shapely.
There is also a big difference between body building and power lifting. The power lifter women have a much higher BF% and the huge muscles they build, covered with the often large layer of body fat, can make a woman look very bulky and manly. I think some women are afraid of looking like that, so they are afraid to lift heavy. In some circumstances, if a woman has a lot of BF to lose, she may want to work on losing BF while lifting moderately, and wait until her BF% is lower before she hits the heavy weights.

Back in my younger days when I was lifting, I had a naturally muscular body, especially legs and shoulders, but I had a short, thick waist. I had a super strong core, but I had to watch the crunches because my waist was already thick, and the only extra BF I had was right in the midsection. It was frustrating that I couldn't get the skinny waist like the bodybuilders I worked out with.

I never had any complaints from men or women about my muscles!

If I didn't have injuries and a chronic spinal disease now, I'd still be in the gym 3 days or more a week.