Women and weight training

I am eating at maintenance, eating my exercise calories. Lift heavy 3 times a week, run once or twice a week and lost a total of 6 inches in 6 weeks. It really work.

I've thought about this a little more.

Sadly that lady (the first one not Jamie) isn't always what women are afraid of. Some women are afraid of any bulk, or the "hard" look. It's silly really and makes me sad (for them, not for myself). It's been a while but I've had women look at my arms in thinly veiled disgust at the gym.



Even THAT is "too bulky" for some.

Jamie Eason

Great Post! Thank You:flowerforyou:

Could you come to my gym and shout this out in the lobby? This entire thing? Thanks.

Hack squats, single leg deadlifts, lunges, and leg presses are what got many famous booties famous.

I like to ask the "I don't want to get MUSCLES" ladies: So, you have bones, fat, and muscle. Out of the three, which EXACTLY is your goal? Because bones+fat is what we should all be working toward, I guess?

Thank you. I am tired of people thinking women will bulk up if they lift.

I think a lot of times it's simply a disconnect in the meaning of "bulk", For example, the OP speaks of not bulking up, then gives instruction on how to gain more muscle. Yet, my definition of "bulking up" is gaining more muscle. Personally, I don't want more muscle than I have. I just want the muscles I have to be "toned". This is why I use mostly body weight exercises for strength and never more than 10 lb weights. Because I don't want to bulk up with new muscle.

But new muscle burns more calories, increases strength, improves health. Stronger women have been shown to live longer.

Just don't follow the GFH (get fu@kin huge) strategy when lifting weights... In other words, your diet will dictate whether you will bulk into something large or just tone up and lose fat while minimizing muscle loss.

I'm 100% sure Eason goes heavy on a regular basis and she doesn't seem to look too bulky....

I have a couple of random responses to various replies in this thread.

Joe, you said:

"You cannot build new tissue unless you are taking in more calories (energy) than you are burning. It's been that way since ..well..forever! "

This is generally true for sure. But you can add muscle in the face of a deficit and I wouldn't call it muscle memory. Well in select instances I might call it muscle memory, for lack of a better term, when ex-athletes or ex-lifters reintroduced strength training back into the mix... but I don't think you were referring to this crowd.

I see it quite often in practice... especially with my heavier clients or my clients who've never really been exposed to true strength training.

Lyle wrote an awesome piece about this that you can find here:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/adding-muscle-while-losing-fat-qa.html

Pay special attention to this part:

So consider the combination: we have a situation with overfat beginners where fat cells are very insulin resistant and essentially trying to push calories away. Now we throw training on that, not only sending a muscle building stimulus via training but increasing nutrient uptake into skeletal muscle through effects on skeletal muscle nutrient uptake/insulin sensitivity.

And what happens under those circumstances is exactly what you’d expect: the body appears to take calories out of fat cells and use them to build muscle. And this is effectively what is happening due to the combination of the above two factors.

Joe, you also said:

"Now you say "well I just started working out and I can see my muscles now!". This isn't NEW tissue. This is muscle memory."

I don't find this to be muscle memory or muscle growth or whatever you want to call it more often than not. The vast majority of time women start lifting weights while eating in a calorie deficit. So fat is being lost, and the resistance training is preserving the base of muscle they already have. This produces an epic optical illusion. They may not be growing muscle, but they sure are seeing a lot more of it as the fat levels minimize. As this visibility increases, it's often confused with muscle growth.

Joe, you also said:

"The benefits of the muscle glycogen being burned out is more than you actually realize for fat burning. "

It should be noted that tradition strength training... the heavy, lowish volume stuff... is not very glycogen demanding at all. I mean, here's a sample of a glycogen depletion workout from Lyle's UD2 book:

Monday:

Leg Press 3x15
Leg Curl 3x15
Chest Press 3x15
Row 3x15
Lateral Raise 2-3x15
Calf Raise - 3x15
Bicep Curl 2x15
Tricep Pushdown 2x15

After you get through all that volume, and that's a lot of volume, you'd go through it one more time. And the following day would be a nearly identical routine. All in conjunction with low carb days.

As you can see... most traditional strength training stuff... at least the stuff that women should be focusing on in order to optimize muscle preservation... isn't anywhere near that volume and by default, it's not going to deplete glycogen all that much.

Hiles, you asked:

"I do have one question for you. For people who are just starting out, would you recommend lifting heavy (for us weaklings that would be like, 10lbs and up) or light...like 5lbs or less...? "

It's important to note that the absolute weight lifted isn't all that important. It's how close that weight is to your maximum ability. And that's not to imply that we should be lifting maximally. But it does imply that we need to be at least somewhat proximal to maximum. It'll vary depending on the person in question and the muscle being trained.... but a rough estimate is the load should be at least 70-80% of your maximum ability in a given movement.

This also implies that 10 lbs might be sufficiently heavy for you in something like, say, shoulder presses. You'd know it if it kept you under, say, 12 reps or so with good form. But it's likely not going to be sufficiently heavy in an exercise that has better leverage and calls on more muscle to execute... say something like a goblet squat, romanian deadlift, row, or whatever. Meaning one weight isn't going to be universally appropriate for all movements.