In my last blog 3 Reasons Why Women Shouldn’t Fear That Weights Will Bulk Them Up. — Shreeve Health and Fitness (shreevehandf.com) , I spoke about how women don’t need to worry about bulking up from training with weights. However, you may be wondering about female bodybuilders and if training with weights will make you look like one.
Here’s what you need to know:
When bodybuilders step on stage they’ve often used a technique called “pumping” which flushes lots of blood into their muscles, making them look temporarily bigger, as well as using a mixture of artificial tans, oils, and lighting to enhance their muscle definition. Even if they have more muscle mass than the average woman, the way they look on stage isn’t necessarily how they’d normally look when going about their every-day lives.
Training for health vs bodybuilding:
Female bodybuilders will will have been training with weights up to two hours a day, 6 days a week, using techniques that are more demanding than most people are willing or able to do, and eating up to 6 high protein meals a day. Bodybuilding isn’t the natural outcome of training with weights, bodybuilding is a sport and It takes huge dedication to build that type of muscle.
Just as a couple of runs per week won’t turn you into a marathon champion, someone who’s eating a normal diet and only strength training for one to two hours a week for general health won’t start to look like a bodybuilder. Those couple of hours a week will have massive benefits for health, longevity and quality of life though.
The benefits of strength training for women:
Strength training has many benefits for women, it helps to turn back the aging process by rebuilding lean tissue that is lost as part of the aging process, it helps to protect their joints when they become more unstable during pregnancy, it builds strong bones, which is especially important post menopause, it improves feelings of self-esteem, combats stress, and helps make the activities of daily living easier. So don’t let by images of bodybuilders, put you off training with weights. Unless you’re planning on living your life like a bodybuilder, then you won’t look like one.
Steve Shreeve