Can women gain muscle mass? Of course YES! But, don’t worry. No more than they want to!
All the previous years the most popular reason that kept women didn’t away from any kind of weight training was their fear of getting too ‘muscular’ or ‘bulking up’(I don’t like to call it this way!).
Despite the knowledge we have gained the last decades from studying the human body and the knowledge that we gained from observation, there are still some women who are afraid of that weight training will make them gain large quantities of muscles and turn them to competitive bodybuilders.
That keeps them away from weight training and any other form of resistance training and the result is that they lose a big opportunity to improve their body composition and achieve the body of their dreams. You see, running, cycling, Zumba, Aerobic and other similar activities won’t make you the curves you want and the athletic body you desire.
Resistance training must be your friend not your enemy.
Resistance training is the only kind of training that can help you reach your goals without needing the help of other activities. Any other way of training (aerobic training) must be combined with resistance training if you want the perfect outcome. But resistance training can give you the perfect outcome without needing to combine with anything else.
But wait a second, the point of this post is, can you gain muscles or not?
You listen to a lot of trainers and people who say that you can’t. That is no true. Of course you can! But your limitations are at the point that you are going to have the perfect athletic body, the body that you see in your favorite magazines and on Tv shows.You won’t be able to overcome this point and to start look like men! So, I don’t see any reason to be afraid of resistance training when the plateau is at the point you are exactly how you dream to be! Even that point, which you have achieved ‘the perfect’ body according to you, requires a lot of time to get there because it is the peak of your body’s abilities to change! So it won’t happen the next week after starting resistance training!
Now, allow me to give you some evidence and I will start with common sense and observation evidence before I go to scientific ones.
I have seen a lot of women starting weight training and stop one month later because they say that they have gained too much muscles and that they are ‘easy’ gainers. Well, there is no such thing. It takes time to build muscle mass and one month it is not enough to make such a big difference. Look the men in the weight room. Some of them goes there more than 4 times per week and if you visit the gym one year later they will look exactly the same or the changes will be trivial/small! Is that right? Of course! Gaining muscle is not easy and if it takes so much time for men to make big differences imagine how much time and effort a woman must put while she doesn’t even have as testosterone (an anabolic hormone, I will talk about it later ) as men have!should-women-lift-like-men
Having said that, stop being afraid of gaining too much muscle mass very fast. It is a process that needs time, so if you reach the level that you are satisfied with your body don’t be afraid that at the next training session you will overcome this point and become ‘muscular’ and ungly. First of all, overcoming this point of your desirable body needs much more effort and dedication and may as I mentioned before not even be possible to happen! Your genetic limitation is not the only reason that this will not happen, it may even be the last reason that keeps this outcome away! Moreover as you become more advanced the gains become harder and harder to come, so it won’t happen in one or two months even if you are genetically lucky and follow the most well prescribed nutrition and training program.
Now, you will tell me that you have seen all this pictures of women bodybuilders and that I am crazy. Well, believe me women bodybuilders follow very strict training programs and diets for not a few months but for YEARS to get there and of course this is not enough to take them there They are also genetically prone and they usually take drugs which takes them closer to men genetics. So we don’t refer to ‘women’ any more. Hence, nothing to compare with you.
If you realize the process of building muscles, you will be convinced that even if you had the men’s genetics it would be still hard to gain muscles (and that’s why you see so many men be skinny or skinny-fat). Why? Well the following reasons will make it clear.
The process of gaining muscle needs a well prescribed resistance training program which will be followed regularly and not only 2-3 times per week and it will be combined with a lot of personal effort.
Let’s suppose that you always put your heart when you train and that you train really hard (which is impossible because our busy lives drain our energy, so there are always times that we don’t have enough energy to train hard). Are you able to go regularly to the gym for months without loosing training sessions? Do you go at least 3-5 times per week for months or your business keeps you away regularly so there are weeks that you don’t even train or that you go only once or twice? But let’s suppose that your training program is fine and that you don’t loose any training session, then there is another reason that can keep you back.
If you want to gain muscles you must follow a good nutrition program too. You must be sure that you take enough protein intake and that you don’t stay foodless for hours as you have heard. But the most important thing is that you must eat MORE than your body needs for maintenance. Do you think that you eat more than you need? Because in my experience most of the women eat less because they are dieting. So do you think that you can lose weight while gaining weight? Does it make sense to you? Of course not! So, as long as you eat less or at the maintenance levels it is not possible to gain weight! And of course, eating more for a week won’t make the difference, you must eat more for a longer period (while following carefully the training program) which is usually rare for a woman. And again eating more is not enough! You must eat more of the right foods!
Okay, let’s suppose again that you have ‘fixed’ your training and nutrition plan. What about your sleep? Does your work schedule give you the opportunity to take enough rest? Most of the times not. What about stress? Stress hinders recovery, do you have a stressful life? Possibly yes as everyone else right now. So, here are two more hinders that can attenuate your gains and this time they are not depended on you (but they depend on your boss)!
After seeing some practical aspects let’s refer to hormones too. For me this is the last thing that keeps you away from a ‘muscular’ body. I find the above practical reasons more important.9105750-smiling-fitness-woman-lifting-weights
As you have heard (or not), testosterone is a very essential hormone if someone wants to gain muscle mass. It is an anabolic hormone and most of the times, low testosterone levels in men are combined with inability to build muscle and an impaired reproductive system. As I mentioned before, men are more able to build muscle probably because they have much more testosterone (and because they eat more and sometimes train more too!). Women have 10 to 20 times less testosterone than men, so imagine that if it is difficult and time consuming to gain muscle for men, how much harder is for women.
I have already explain a lot of reasons about why you can’t achieve an undesirable
‘muscular’ body and that the only body that you can achieve is the one that you dream of and nothing further than this. Hence, stop being afraid of resistance training because this is your best weapon, this will make you lean with sexy curves and a beautiful happy smile.
And if all these reasons are not enough for you, then, start weight training and if you ever think that you are going to gain more muscle mass than you want, change your training program for a while. But this will never happen! Fortunately for you, the peak of the mountain is your dream body and there is nothing after it as to make you nervous and scared!
Before I end this post I want to stress one more common misconception. Sometimes after a resistance training session you may feel swollen. This is natural and don’t worry it is not that you gained muscle mass. It is just blood. Your muscles have been injured from your training so blood must go there and take care of them by providing them with plenty of nutrients. This will last only for a couple of minutes or a couple of hours, so there is no real reason to be afraid of. This inflammation happens in a higher degree in women than in men(who would wish to have this luck) and probably this is one of the reasons that women recover faster after a training. So, if you ever observe something like this be happy. It means that your training session was great!
I hope that after all this talk and explanations that you are convinced that there is nothing to scare you and that you should start immediately resistance training if you haven’t started yet! Moreover, if you already knew some of the above reasons and you were trying to convince other women by explaining them why they should relax, now you have some more things to say to convince them and please DO CONVINCE THEM!
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