Heavy Lifting Women

I've been an avid CrossFitter for 3 years (and yes its not a dedicated lifting program but I split jerk 110% of my body weight over my head yesterday and can deadlift double my body weight for reps so i would say i am fairly strong) and it has taken me that long to get muscle definition in my arms and legs. Yes i would say i am more defined than your average chick but I love that I have great muscle definition in my arms and legs and the things i can do. The definition of bulky is different to everyone. I would not say i was bulky still yet someone else might say I am. Your average female with a decent diet and a progressive lifting program should start to see definition but without serious training and bulking cutting cycles you will not get bulky.

HamOrla wrote: »

And heavy lifting ladies out there who have stayed nice and slim???

um. well, here's my experience. i started out on losing weight because i found a picture of my 20-something self who weighed 20-something pounds at the time and it shattered my whole denial circuit about how 30 extra pounds wasn't 'really' that noticeable visually. i wanted to get back to that 'slim' person again. somewhere along the way towards doing that, i got into compound lifting.

i don't lift super-heavy but i've been doing it three times a week for three years and i certainly try for as heavy as i can go. over that time i've weighed 120-something again [currently back there right now]. and i've also gone back to 140-something as well.

my experience was: yes, even at the same weight i look different 'with' lifting from how i looked in that photograph. that woman is gone. basically, i guess i must be the same size - i weigh the same, so yeah. but i've got curves now no matter what the scale says. that photo i found is too lost for me to do any comparisons, but some things are probably never going to come back. my collarbones and that bony ridge along the front of your pelvis are 'gone'- instead i almost have a slight indentation along the bone line. my thighs have a single faint curve from hip to knee that didn't used to be there, and my ankles and calves have actually slimmed out a bit.

so i found that lifting mostly filled me 'in' - it's added muscle tissue where i used to have gaps between bone segments. but it didn't really fill me 'out' in the kind of way that you're worried about.

and if you like doing it, why not do it? it's definitely no more of a risk to the way you'd like to look than, say 'i like eating oreos, so why not do that.'