Why Weight Training Won't Make You Bulky
WHY DO WE WEIGHT TRAIN?
If there’s one thing every single female client has said to me at the beginning of our work together, it’s this:
“I DON’T WANT TO GET BULKY”
Or, they get super specific with concerns that one part of the body is going to get too big, too thick or too muscular.
Fact of the matter is this: weight training as a key to fat loss for females will never result in you looking like a dude. It will, however, create the lean look so many women are looking for. Yet, with so much stigma around weight training and the ‘bulk’ business, it continues to be an under-utilized approach to women reaching their body composition goals.
The Chemistry
There’s more than just the weights at work when it comes to how bodies build muscle mass. In particular, it’s hormones. Hormonal production is the biggest factor that impacts the speed and size of muscle growth.
Males produce testosterone, and females produce estrogen and progesterone as dominant hormones. Testosterone is touted as the primary hormonal driver of muscle growth, while estrogen and progesterone are responsible for controlling the menstrual cycle and supporting pregnancy. While all bodies produce all three of these hormones, it’s not in equal quantities.
Let’s look at testosterone: males produce 5 to 6mg of testosterone, whereas women produce 0.5mg of testosterone (the equivalent of what a 6 year old boy produces). So, by simply looking at the numbers around testosterone production—the ‘muscle building hormone’—it’s easy to see that the female body isn’t close to set up to naturally gain as much muscle mass as men.
So with the concern of ‘lady bulk’ out of the picture, let’s look at the other reasons why weight training is something to get excited about.
The Case for Weight Training
Beyond the benefits of reduced impact on your joints in comparison to ‘weight loss aerobics’ like long distance running, weight training benefits fat loss in females more efficiently than any other form of movement.
Why?
Females have more Type 1 fibers in their muscles—the fast-twitch muscles that help you perform explosive movements like sprints, squats, etc.—which equates to burning more body fat while they are being trained.
Think about a car: the bigger the engine, the more fuel it needs to run. When you increase muscle mass, your body has to use more energy (or calories) to maintain it. This means your body burns more calories even sitting around doing nothing, or while you’re sleeping.
Weight training increases the production of great hormones that promote fat loss, ike HGH (Human Growth Hormone) and Testosterone (not an increase, just the continued production).
Weight training routines can be easily manipulated over time to progressively see change, and can be targeted to focus on creating change in specific areas of the body.
The Forecast
Intelligently programmed and safely executed weight training routines can help correct imbalances in the muscular structure of an individual, and have a huge impact on body composition and a body’s aesthetic. As word gets out about the benefits of this kind of movement, we’ll only see more individuals adopting this approach to fat loss.
Many of my clients are working through a big strength phase right now and seeing great results: noticing more overall strength, seeing significant drops in their body fat, and displaying a greater confidence in the gym itself. Keep your eyes on the fitness industry: it’s my bet that Olympic LIfting and the like are about to really blow up as word gets out about how many benefits heavily weighted training programs have for females.