Should Women Train & Lift Weights Like Men? Only If They Want Results

It’s one of the most common misconceptions in fitness- the idea that women shouldn’t lift weights or train like men for fear of building man sized muscles and losing their femininity. It’s a misconception that is strongly supported by the media and fitness industry as it helps sell gender targeted activities and gym memberships- even though it prevents women from realizing most of their fitness goals. In a quest to maximize class attendances and boost enrollment, women have been bombarded for the past several decades with the idea that they can indeed get the strong, sculpted and toned body of their dreams from doing aerobics, Pilates or yoga, with a small amount of weight lifting thrown in for good measure- but using weights of a ridiculously inconsequential magnitude. The marketing gender bias is strong, and for good reasons. Gyms sell memberships to women based on classes that appeal to them and the quality, quantity (and even color) of the cup holding treadmills, Stairmasters and elliptical machines. Selectorized weight machines are designed to be as stylish and as attractive as possible to women, and with good reason. Women make up the majority of gym goers across the board here in the United States, with statistics showing them making up an impressive 66 percent of the total gym member population.[1] The problem is, however that while classes and  equipment are designed to attract a heavily female patronage- they do little to address their actual goals. Emphasis is, and always has been on sales- not results, so it isn’t surprising that most fitness related programs for women have little in the way of serious weight training as a selling point- regardless of how effective it might be.

While few women would look at the quality and quantity of barbells and dumbbells to determine whether a gym was right for them- it’s indeed the weights that they need to realize their goals of a tighter and more toned body. What works for men to build lean and sculpted physiques works for women as well- but sadly only a few eschew the scientifically absurd notions that women need to train differently or that weight training has a negative impact on femininity. The millions of women who remain frustrated by their lack of progress are a telling testimony to the fact that the light weight/aerobics approach doesn’t really work. In stark contrast however, the sculpted and undeniably feminine fitness models and in shape celebrities whose bodies most women consider as their ultimate goal all incorporate serious weight training to look the way they do.

Social Barriers In the Media To Women Lifting Weights

The gender gap here in developed countries may be closing in terms of employment and equal rights (to a degree) but in the physical world, women are still expected to do less. Consider for a moment a photo spread of a female fitness model or celebrity training in a magazine. Everyone is always smiling for the camera, while posing with uselessly light weights or taking a class or smiling on an aerobic machine. It is very rare that you will see a woman training with weights and grimacing with effort. It might not sound like much of  a big deal, and one might argue that it caters to the female aesthetic- but  think about what other ideas such images convey. Contrast those images with photos of Arnold in his prime working out, or any major male star who gets into ripped and muscular shape for a film. You’d be hard pressed to find a photo of them smiling at the camera in tights with light weights in their hand and if you saw it you would think that they were in some way belittling the hard work that went into their transformation and that they weren’t being taken seriously. Instead you see them training hard- which sends a very powerful message that inspires other men to do the same and thus they get the same results. Women don’t have that privilege in the media. Like it or not, body language is an important part of how we are influenced and women today, don’t have that message that it’s okay to work hard and sweat as most of the cues from the media are focused on training being fun and light activities. This works really well to sell but it lacks authenticity and I personally find it alarmingly hypocritical. Especially when the buffed women in the photos actually train as hard, if not harder than the men with weights to look the way they look but are not depicted as such.

The Impact Of Drug Use In Female Bodybuilding & Physique Sports As a Barrier To Women Lifting Weights

Back in the islands, weight training is considered a serious undertaking, by both men and women alike. In climates where you walk around half naked 365 days a year, coupled with festivals requiring little in the way of dress but lots in the way of sculpted abs and tight bodies, weight training is embraced as the defacto method to get that lean and hard body, regardless of gender. Growing up, the piece of advice I would hear given over and over to young women bent on getting their stomachs flat and their behinds tight was to go train with the boys. A visit to a hardcore gym back home will reveal not just men toiling away doing squats and deadlifts, but women as well. And make no mistake that those women- as hard as they train they aren’t masculine by any stretch of the imagination, but rather they sport the sleek and toned bodies that are the elusive Holy Grail for most. As effective as serious weight lifting may be for women interested in doing everything from firming up the back of their arms, to tightening their midsection and shaping up the back of their legs, it doesn’t sell. A fact compounded by the negative impact of modern female bodybuilding where drug use creates a rather daunting image of women with muscles popping out of muscles in an obviously unnatural way. Images like these go a long way in cementing the unfounded idea that if women train like men that they will eventually look like men, but nothing could be further from the truth. One of the first obstacles that must be overcome for women to understand the folly of such an idea is the truth about drug use in physique sports.

Female bodybuilders who don't use drugs don't look masculine at all.

The majority of the world is unaware that there are two vastly incongruent worlds of bodybuilding. One, is where the use of anabolic steroids, growth hormone, insulin, thyroid medication and other drugs are not only used by competitors but encouraged. These are the women (and men) you see prominently displayed in the magazines- and quite frankly, the ones who most members of the general public find highly unattractive. It’s hard not to be affected by the image of a female bodybuilder, (and in some cases figure competitors) who look very much like guys wearing bikinis. My philosophy is and always will be to each his or her own, but the problem with such displays is that there is little done to educate the public- women in particular- that no matter how hard you train and how much you lift, you’ll never look like the women you see onstage at untested shows because it simply isn’t possible without an extensive array of drugs. The other travesty is that natural bodybuilding is virtually unknown to the public at large. Completely overshadowed by the freakish and out of this world physiques of untested competitions is the world of drug tested bodybuilding, where the women look not at all like guys in drag, but very much like the models you see adorning the covers of popular fitness magazines.

It would surprise most women to learn that the tight bodies of their dreams are attained regularly by those who train with weights as hard as the guys do. Female bodybuilding in its infancy, went a along way to inspire a whole generation of women hitting the weights to change their bodies during the 1980’s, but the specter of drug use brought such inspiration to a grinding halt, and the fitness industry, eager to not lose consumers, simply switched the emphasis from promoting weight training to more aerobic type and class oriented activities for women as a result. It makes sense, but it also raises some very important social questions about our society and the underlying trend of a submissive role for women in today’s world, but before delving into the social aspects, let’s look first at the physiology of the matter. Are women in any way different from men in terms of their body structure and is there any basis for a need for different approaches to exercise for them to get optimal results? These are valid questions and fortunately also ones that have been extensively researched over the years.

Men and Women- Hormonal & Structural  Differences

It shouldn’t surprise anyone over the age of four that there are indeed major differences between men and women in terms of their body structure. In terms of metabolism, men are on average bigger and have more muscle mass than women, which accounts for them having an average metabolic rate of about 1.0 kilocalories per hour per kilogram of body weight. Women have slightly slower metabolisms than men, which among other things accounts for it being so much easier for them to gain weight when compared to their male counterparts. The difference isn’t that huge though, with the median metabolic rate for a woman being usually about 0.9 kilocalories per hour per kilogram of body weight. Women also have higher levels of estrogen than men do- a hormone responsible for not only female secondary sex characteristics, but structural functions such as increasing sex specific fat stores.[2] Men have higher levels of testosterone, which among other things  plays a key role in the development of male reproductive tissues as well as promoting increased muscle and bone mass.[3] Both men and women have some level of circulating estrogen and testosterone, but the concentrations of estrogen are higher in women, while testosterone levels in men are far higher. Testosterone’s anabolic, or muscles building effects can make men more muscular and give them more potential to increase the size and strength of their muscles, while the lower levels and the differences in the way the female body responds to testosterone make it impossible for women to naturally build muscle mass or strength at levels comparable to men without the use of anabolic steroids- which are for the most part synthetic derivatives of testosterone.

Hormones aside, there are also important structural differences between men and women in terms of muscles. Studies of elite male and female bodybuilders show a clear difference in the maximum size of muscle fibers in men when compared to women. Men not only have muscle fibers that are twice as large, but also even among world class strength athletes, contractile muscle takes up less than 30 % of their total body mass in females than in males. Such research is invaluable as it puts to rest the idea that women who weight trained extensively would somehow sprout man sized muscles.  In fact, studies continue to suggest that while females can significantly increase their strength through weight training, they are not able to increase their muscle size and density to the degree that men can. [5,6]

Do Women Respond Differently To Weight Training

While we have demonstrated that women do not and cannot under ordinary circumstances get muscles that are as big or as strong as men, the question thus remains whether there is a difference in the way women would respond to such exercise. Today’s party line states that women have more body fat than men(which is on average quite correct) and thus have to do more fat burning exercises like aerobics to lose weight along with high repetition weight training of low intensity. The problem with this popular ideology is that it has no foundation in the way our bodies work, nor does it take into consideration the mechanical stresses required for the toned and taut bodies that most women seek. Firstly, it has been proven that brief high intensity weight training burns more calories and contributes to a greater reduction in overall body fat than aerobic type exercises. [7,8]

It was first thought that aerobic exercise contributed to weight loss by burning calories during exercise and afterwards as well. However, subsequent studies have conclusively shown that the so called ‘afterburn effect’ is far more pronounced after a high intensity weight training type workout.[9,10,11] (Read my article on High Intensity Workouts and Fat Loss here). Thus. weight training of sufficient intensity not only helps you burn calories (and potential body fat) while training, but also stimulates an increase in overall metabolism during the recovery period after training at a rate significantly higher than aerobic exercise can. Weight training also increases muscle mass- which not only gives you the much coveted look of a chiseled and sculpted body- but also helps you burn more calories as a result of the consequent increase in muscle mass.  (Read my article on Aerobics here.)

Women & Weight Training- Aerobics & Light Weight Lifting Won’t Give You That Tight & Toned Physique

Aerobic type exercises do not stimulate significant increases in muscle mass- with muscle adaptations occurring only at the beginning of a period of relative inactivity and even then, only in a very limited form. In terms of creating a tight and toned body, low intensity weight training is equally worthless as muscle can only be stimulated if there is an overload that it is not accustomed to dealing with. You can do 100 bicep curls with a user friendly looking purple 5 lb weight from now until the cows come home, but it won’t do a thing to make your arms any tighter. You can use female friendly leg abductor/abductor machines with light weights for hours on end- but you won’t get tighter legs. Without an intensity that signals to your body that it has to adapt to an activity by becoming stronger and bigger, basically nothing happens as you have to train with relatively heavy weights (within reason) and at an intensity adequate enough to spur your body to respond (kind of like how the guys train.) Read my article on How Muscles Get Bigger And Stronger for a more in-depth presentation of how our body responds to exercise.

Building muscle, thus, is indeed the Holy Grail and gender-wise, there is absolutely no evidence for women training with different exercises or different ways to build it. In fact, when looked at as relative changes, the percentage increases in cross sectional muscle area between men and women as a response to weight training is very much the same.[12,13] So if you want to really make significant changes in your body, you need to make weight training the central part of your routine- not an afterthought done at the end. In terms of exercises, forget about the light weight with high reps idea as it won’t get you anywhere, and instead focus on compound movements like squats, deadlifts, rows, presses and even power exercises like clean and jerks. You’ll be surprised not only how much your body will change, but that as your muscles grow and your body fat diminishes you’ll get smaller. That’s right, high intensity weight training makes women smaller- not bigger. Your muscles mass will increase some- just enough to enhance your curves, tighten everything up and create that svelte look, but the loss of body fat will indeed make you go down several sizes. Every woman I know who ever met a natural female bodybuilder or figure competitor was always amazed at just how small they were in person. Without drugs, it just doesn’t happen, but of course, you have to pay attention to your diet as well. It doesn’t happen overnight- but if you stick with it, I guarantee you’ll be more than pleased with the results.

Related Articles:

Does Weight Training Reduce Breast Size In Women

Why Women Choose Aerobics Over Weight Training

Rethinking The Need For Cardio

What Do Female Bodybuilders Look Like Without Drugs

References:

1. 2008 IDEA Programs & Equipment Survey Results

2. Nelson LR, Bulun SE. “Estrogen production and action”. J. Am. Acad. Dermatol. Sept 2001

3.Mooradian AD, Morley JE, Korenman SG. “Biological actions of androgens”. Endocr. Rev. Feb. 1987

4. Alway SE, Grumbt WH, Gonyea WJ, Stray-Gundersen J.Contrasts in muscle and myofibers of elite male and female bodybuilders.  Department of Cell Biology,

5. Brown CH, and JH Wilmore. The effects of maximal resistance trainng on the strength and body composition of women. Med. Sci. Sports Exercise 1974

6. Wilmore JH. Alterations in strength, body composition and anthropometric measures consequent to a ten week weight training program.Med. Sci. Sports Exercise 1974

7. Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism. Tremblay, A. et al., Physical Activities Sciences Laboratory, Laval University, Quebec, Canada Metabolism.1994; 43(7): 814-818.

8. High-intensity Interval Training: A Time-efficient Strategy for Health Promotion. Martin J. Gibala, PhD, Department of Kinesiology, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada Current Sports Medicine Reports 2007, 6:211-213

9. Bahr R (1992). “Excess postexercise oxygen consumption–magnitude, mechanisms and practical implications”. Acta Physiologica Scandinavica. Supplementum 605: 1–70. PMID 1605041.

10. Bahr R, Høstmark AT, Newsholme EA, Grønnerød O, Sejersted OM (September 1991). “Effect of exercise on recovery changes in plasma levels of FFA, glycerol, glucose and catecholamines”. Acta Physiologica Scandinavica 143

11. Bielinski R, Schutz Y, Jéquier E (July 1985). “Energy metabolism during the postexercise recovery in man”. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 42

12. Alway SE, Grumbt WH, Gonyea WJ, Stray-Gundersen J. Effects of resistance training on elbow flexors of highly competitive bodybuilders. J. Appl. Physiol

13. Deschenes MR, Kraemer WJ. Performance and physiologic adaptations to resistance training. Am J Phys Med Rehabil. 2002

Kevin Richardson is an award winning fitness writer, one of the most sought after personal trainers in New York City and the creator of Naturally Intense High Intensity Training^TM. Get a copy of his free weight loss ebook here. If you live in the New York metropolitan area and need help losing weight, building muscle or taking your body to the next level give Kevin and his team a call at 1-800-798-8420 or click here to get started.

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Author and lifetime drug free bodybuilder, Kevin Richardson

How Do Muscles Get Bigger And Stronger? A Guide

When I started out as a scrawny 125 lb teenager, the idea of building an impressively muscled physique initially seemed to be as unlikely as my reaching the summit of Mount Everest. Surrounded by a cacophony of often contradictory information on the subject of muscle building, I took it upon myself to stop reading the books and magazines (the Internet wasn’t around then, thank goodness!) and focused instead on the science of how the human body actually works. It wasn’t easy, but with the help of some great mentors and my thirst for marketing free knowledge, I was able lead a successful career as a drug free bodybuilding champion and develop my own method of high intensity training. Going from 125 lbs to 225 lbs with a body fat percentage always under 6% without the using steroids or any other kind of hormones required an intricate understanding of how muscles get bigger and stronger. Helping other men and women build world class bodies has gone a long way in helping me come to an even deeper understanding of how muscle growth really occurs and in the following lines I hope to pass on what I have learned to you as well.

How Do Muscles Get Bigger & Stronger- The Role Of Stress

The first and key element required for our muscles to get bigger or stronger is stress. Physiologist Walter Cannon came up with the term ‘homeostasis’ to explain the way in which our body does its best to always stay within a comfortable operating range where our cells can function optimally. The concept is that while external forces can sometimes bring about drastic changes in our body, it always reverts to a default position. Your heart rate is a good example of homeostasis as it beats constantly within a set range under ordinary conditions, but that rate can either go up or down depending on what type of activity you are doing. In spite of these fluctuations, as long as you are healthy,  your heart rate will always return to its regular resting rate. Stress is a key reason for your body to change, and having observed soldiers returning from World War One he coined the oft used phrase ‘fight or flight’ to describe the hormonal reactions in our body in response stress. In addition to life threatening situations, more mundane activities such as exercise also evoke a homeostatic response.

A Polish endocrinologist named Hans Seyle furthered these concepts when he discovered in his experiments that rats who were exposed to certain chemicals all suffered the same

failure of several major organ systems in a way that could be reproduced no matter what chemical was used. He called it, the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) and it encompasses the state of an organism in relation to how it adapts to its environment. The systematic organ failure he saw in the rats was a failure to adapt to stress. He found that there were three clearly defined stages within this particular syndrome, the first being the ‘alarm reaction’, very similar to the ‘fight or flight’ response described by Walter Cannon.  The second stage being an adaptive response- where the organism tries to adapt to the stress as a form of resistance. Finally if the stress is too large for the organism to handle, the exhaustion phase where cell death occurs.

Diagram of the General Adaptation Syndrome model. Author=David McQuillan

As negative a connotation that the word ‘stress’ carries for us today, the reality is that it is an extremely important stimulus in our daily lives as it allows us to adapt to our surrounding

environment. Without stress, we wouldn’t exist and in many ways it can be a very positive thing as it is how the body acts to remove or minimize the effect of a stressful stimulus. A common example of stress at work is a callus. If you wear shoes that are a bit too tight and it rubs repeatedly against a part of your foot, if the action isn’t so strong as to form a blister (the exhaustion phase) As long as the action is not strong enough to create a blister (exhaustion stage) over time the layers of skin that rub against the inside of your shoe will begin to harden. The skin will continue to get thicker and harder until a callus is formed. The callus then, serves as a way your body protects the deeper layers of skin tissue from being destroyed by the action of rubbing against your shoe. In essence adaptation works to minimize the effect of stress on the body.

How Do Muscles Get Bigger & Stronger- Adaptation

The way in which our muscles get bigger and stronger is a prime example of the General Adaptation Syndrome. Understanding how it works can help you make the most out of your workouts. Let’s look at the most ubiquitous of muscles: the biceps. Your biceps are responsible for any movement involving elbow flexion such as a biceps curl. Now your body, over the years is already adapted to the weight of your arm and the regular activities that you do on a daily basis, so you could do lots of biceps curls with no weight and your arms would not get bigger or stronger. You’d get tired, the way you would by performing any kind of calisthenics, but your muscles wouldn’t increase in strength. In order for your muscles to get bigger and stronger, you would have to apply overload. To overload means that the muscle experiences a load above and beyond what it previously adapted to in order to trigger the sequence of a new adaptation.

So in a way, it sounds pretty straightforward- put some weights on a barbell, more than you have ever done, but not so much as to bring about injury and do some curls to increase the strength and size of your biceps. But there are some more principles involved, if not everyone that picked up a barbell and did some curls would have arms like Arnold Schwarzenegger! Our muscles, and our body in general tries its best to remain in homeostasis (remember that word?). So, in a way our body is reluctant to adapt and when it does adapt to a particular stimulus, it will stay where it is until there is a greater degree of stimulation. It is very similar to the way most people do their jobs, if you think about it. We tend to do just what is required of us to get the job done and if the minimum amount of effort works the first time around, then everything is fine. Only if it doesn’t do we increase our efforts incrementally, not in leaps and bounds until the job is done. Our body works exactly the same way, and you might even say it is a bit on the lazy side.

So, back to our biceps curl. When you subject your biceps to the overload of lifting weights they undergo a cascade of cellular events that lead to an increased production of contractile proteins. This process, called anabolism, also increases the size of the muscle. As the muscle gets larger the mechanical stress from the adaptation is spread out over a larger surface area and consequently places a smaller stress on the muscle. To sum it up, increased size equals increased strength. Physiologists will say that increase in contractile proteins is an expression of the muscles’ capacity to generate force. The strength of a muscle, therefore is often relative to its cross sectional area. Now, that doesn’t mean that if you keep lifting weights your muscles would continually get bigger and stronger until you could lift a Honda with one arm, as there are limits determined by our gender and hormones. Men have more testosterone than women, and so will have bigger and stronger muscles, and women not using anabolic steroids or hormones have little chance of naturally developing male sized muscles, no matter how hard they train.

Now after doing the bicep curl with an overload high enough to trigger an adaptation, a number of hormonal and chemical events occur. Among them are factors that bring about adaptive anabolic muscle building. These chemical actions, along with the mechanical stress to the point of overload leads to increase in muscle size, which we call hypertrophy. But, and this is important- the adaptation does not happen while you are training, but while you are at rest! What does that mean? It means that if you really want to maximize your results in terms of strength and muscle size you need to do three things:

1.      Always train to a point where your muscles are seriously taxed- as if you do not, there will not be adequate stimulation for the adaptation response to be triggered.

2.      Always keep changing the exercises you do and the way you do them so your muscles do not adapt too quickly to the work you are doing.

3.      Make sure that you spend more time resting that you do training. Physiologically, training is about breaking down your muscles, while resting is about building them up, so if you are serious about increasing your results, you should train harder but less frequently. My rule has always been, train three days- rest and grow for four days.

What Can Stop Muscles From Getting Bigger & Stronger- Overtraining

Say the words ‘Train less’ to most serious exercise enthusiasts and they will look at you as if you have two heads, but it makes perfect sense. Remember the General Adaptation response model? If the action is too great and the organism is unable to adapt to the stress, it results in the exhaustion phase, where on a cellular level instead of a building (or anabolic) action, there is a destructive action (catabolic). This, in terms of exercise stress, is what is called overtraining and is defined as a physical, behavioral, and sometimes emotional condition that occurs when the volume and intensity of your exercise exceeds your body’s capacity to recover. You stop making progress and in many cases find yourself getting weaker more fatigued and generally less motivated as time goes on.  Overtraining can also lower your immune system and increase the incidence of injury. (See figure 1)

In my experience, the number one reason why most people don’t make the progress they expect in the gym is overtraining. Having put on over 100 lbs of muscle using short high intensity workouts lasting from ten to thirty minutes in duration three days a week, I can say with authority that less is indeed more. Unfortunately, many look to the examples set by those using anabolic steroids as an example of how they should train. In doing so, they fail to take into account that one of the primary advantages of steroid use are faster recovery times and that overtraining is no longer an issue. It is an issue, however for those of us who train without the benefit of such potentially dangerous drugs and while it may be hard for many to consider training less frequently and for shorter times, it is hard to argue with the results it can bring.

Kevin Richardson is a drug free bodybuilding champion, one of the most sought after personal trainers in New York City and creator of Naturally Intense High Intensity Training 10 Minute Workouts™. Get a copy of his free weight loss ebook here! If you live in the New York metropolitan area and need help losing weight, building muscle or taking your body to the next level give Kevin and his team a call at 1-800-798-8420 or click here to get started with 50% off your trial personal training session.

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Why People Choose Aerobics Over Weight Training- And Don’t Get The Weight Loss Results They Want

Here is the scenario experienced by the overwhelming majority of people that try to lose weight with aerobics- you start a program, be it running or taking classes or using the aerobic machines in the gym and after some initial weight loss everything seems to plateau. You aren’t losing any more weight in spite of the hours you are putting in religiously adhering to your aerobic exercise program. You think to yourself: ” perhaps that hour isn’t enough” and so, you increase your exercise time hoping that it will bring a concurrent reduction in your overall body fat and you’ll l be well on your way to a body that looks terrific with no clothes on. Sadly, there is no magic moment of body transformation. In fact, you might even find yourself gaining weight even though you are literally working your behind off for hours on end. Frustration begins to set in. Perhaps it is your diet- so you tighten that up a bit more but you are hungry all the time and find it really hard not to eat a lot given the amount of time you spend exercising. If you are like 97% of the people that start a weight loss program of this nature,  you will most likely quit after three to six months and feel like a complete failure. Even worse, you’ll think that there is probably something wrong with your metabolism that is stopping you from losing weight as everyone knows that aerobic exercise is the best way to lose weight and tone up- but it just isn’t happening for you. Most people will also develop a bit of an aversion to exercising as a result as well (and the constant repetitive movement can lead to overuse injuries as well). Not that many of us in the general  population find hours upon hours of running or working out on a Stairmaster or stationery bike to be anything but excruciatingly boring. Others can spend hours singing the praises of the ‘runner’s high’ and how much of a stress reduction sustained exercise can be- but this is but a small percentage of the species. Most people can’t stand the monotony and when coupled with the frustration coming from a lack of results, many learn to hate it.  The problem is that aerobics are not the best form of weight loss nor are they”the be all and end all” of overall health and fitness. For the past several decades, the best kept secret in the fitness field is that high intensity weight training gives you the body of your dreams- not aerobics- but it does not sell to the general public as easily as aerobic exercise does.

Reason Number 1: Weight Training Usually Requires Some Degree Of Instruction

There are some very simple reasons why people gravitate towards aerobics rather than weight training. One is that weight training tends to require some degree of initial instruction which conflicts greatly with today’s do-it-yourself mentality. To obtain a degree in business you study under the tutelage of someone with an advanced knowledge of the subject, but to learn how to do something as important as change your body and improve your health, most rely on a few magazine articles and what they saw on television. Weight training isn’t instinctive. You can’t simply buy a pair of sneakers and start doing it as you need to know what you are doing so that you don’t get hurt.

Reason Number 2: People Still Believe That If They Weight Train They Will Get Unsightly Big Muscles

The other reason people steer clear of weight training is because they believe that they will magically sprout unsightly muscles after a few months of weight training. As a former competitive bodybuilder, I wish that this was the case, but it isn’t- even for the most genetically gifted among us, developing a truly muscular physique requires not only a dietary intake two to three times that of the average human, but years of consistency as well. You can’t build muscles overnight any more than you can get a gut overnight. It takes time- a lot of time, and for women building muscles is even harder. Women naturally have ten times less of the hormones required for increasing muscle mass and few women are aware that intense weight training and not aerobics are responsible for most of the great female physiques you see on the billboards.

Reason Number 3: People Are Afraid Of Weight Training

Another common reason why people shy away from weight training and go towards aerobics is fear. Plain and simple fear. Weight training, especially high intensity weight training looks hard- and it is! There is no mistaking the grimaces and the grunts are associated with those that dare cross the line from the aerobic section of the gym to the weight rooms and most of us are a bit put off by the idea of such kinds of exertion as it just doesn’t look as good as running or taking a class. The sad part is that most people who truly dislike monotonous aerobic activity tend to love the immediate gratification that comes from the pump of working your muscles with weights. Properly done a weight training session is shorter, has an almost infinite variety of exercises and routines and you can see tangible results much faster. Weight training changes your body, whereas doing aerobics at best can only make you a smaller version of yourself- and if you are a bit soft to begin with- you’ll be soft to end with and without the tone, strength and increase in coordination that comes with weight training.

Reason 4: The Media Portrays An Inaccurate View Of The Reality of Weight Training

The final reason why weight training is often pushed aside for more aerobic type exercises lies squarely with the influence that the media has on our collective ideas on exercise. In the 1980’s non-steroidal looking female bodybuilders paved the way for a huge increase in the number of women joining gyms. Sporting strong, sculpted and toned bodies that were still extremely feminine their examples remain the ideal for most women of today- but the media no longer highlights them as role models given the negative stereotypes created by modern female bodybuilders who use considerable amounts of anabolic steroids and growth hormones to achieve a look that is for most people unmistakably masculine. Without drugs, women cannot develop the degree of hypermuscularity you see on today’s female bodybuilders- and in many ways they have done more to scare away women from weight training than any other group save the media.

The media’s job is to sell and entertain and to do so a bit of reality bending is usually in order to make things look as attractive as possible for consumers. In so doing they often propagate sexist ideas of femininity (women are softer and less aggressive than men) and so when they portray women working out, they usually do so with the women smiling and looking like they are having a great time. Look at any men’s magazine and you’ll see men weight training with some serious grimaces- but for women’s magazines (published by the same companies, mind you) the women are always given a more demure look and tend to be doing more aerobics than weight training. It is a subtle message but one that I don’t want my daughter to internalize because it is fundamentally wrong. To change your body you need to work hard. Working hard involves sweating and very often a sense of exertion that won’t make you look pretty and passive, but strong and in control.

Not that we should look to the media for our role models to begin with, but it is important, especially for women to note that they are doing themselves a disservice by selecting a training program made up of mostly aerobic exercises and that they will never get the body they are looking for by doing aerobics alone. The same goes for the guys. Over the past twenty years as a personal trainer, 99.9% of my clients wanted a look that comes only from weight training. Aerobics are a great form of exercise when done judiciously and in moderation for relaxation, stress management and for improving some aspects of your fitness levels- but when it comes to really changing your body, weight training is all you need.

Here are some articles to get you started on the road towards changing your body with weight training:

Aerobics Don’t Work For Weight Loss

High Intensity Training And Endurance

High Intensity Training And Weight Loss

Kevin Richardson is one of the most sought after and respected personal trainers in NYC and the creator of Naturally Intense High Intensity Training 10 Minute Workouts. You an download a copy of his free weight loss ebook here.

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Does Weight Training Really Reduce Breast Size In Women?

One of the most common myths about weight training for women is that weight training reduces breast size and creates a flat manly looking chest. This misconception has prevented many women from incorporating weight training into their quests to lose weight and firm up their bodies- a path that inevitably leads to failure as weight training is without question the most effective way to really tone up and develop a tight body. But what about the prospect of becoming flat chested? To answer that I can honestly say that unless you plan on starving yourself  or using anabolic steroids, women have little to worry about in terms of their breasts getting smaller from weight training. In fact most tend to see a slight increase over time!

Weight training properly executed with sufficient intensity, adequate rest and nutrition will bring about an increase in muscle size of any part of the body that is being worked.  This holds true whether it be it the pectoralis muscles of the chest (or pecs as many call them) or the muscles of your arms and legs. The way that this process (hypertrophy) works is that individual muscle fibers will get bigger (slightly bigger, that is, you won’t see mountains of muscle sprout on a woman without the use of anabolic steroids as it takes men with ten times more testosterone, years upon years to develop a muscular physique) or they will split and then get slightly bigger. The fibers of your pectoral muscles are all constituents of skeletal muscle whereas breast tissue is made up of sex specific adipose tissue (fat), ligaments, connective tissue and mammary glands. There are no skeletal muscle fibers found in the breasts as they simply sit directly over the pectoralis muscles. Weight training therefore can have no direct effect on them whatsoever.

Weight Training Doesn’t Affect Breasts Only The Muscles Underneath

Breast schematic diagram (adult human female cross section) - Legend: 1. Chest wall 2. Pectoralis muscles 3. Lobules 4. Nipple 5. Areola 6. Duct 7. Fatty tissue 8. Skin. Image courtesy Patrick J. Lynch, medical illustrator

Breasts thus cannot hypertrophy or get larger due to weight training, but by increasing the size (slightly, ladies) of the pectoral muscles under the breasts there will be a natural increase in overall chest size. It may then appear that the breasts look a bit larger as they will stand up a bit more (which, is something most women would not mind) but the actual size and composition of the breasts themselves will not change. A study conducted in the University of Arizona back in 1985 confirmed this phenomenon in a 21 day study that used concentric and eccentric contractions with a specialized chest exercise machine. After the three week program researchers found no changes whatsoever in the size, shape or volume of the breasts of the women participating after extensive scientific measurement.

So what about those flat chested women in the magazines with thickly developed chest muscles and no breasts? First off all the female bodybuilders that we typically see use drugs to develop unnatural degrees of muscular development and body fat reduction and do not represent in any way what a regular woman would look like if they weight trained. The size and shape of breasts in a healthy woman is fairly resistant to change as long as there are normal conditions of hydration and food availability, but in cases of extreme under nutrition (for example the type of starvation diets that bodybuilders undergo to get that lean and vascular look or someone with an eating disorder like bulimia or anorexia) where there is a severe reduction of body-weight and overall body fat the breasts which have a high proportion of fat, will shrink. In the case of the female bodybuilders- you see the dense muscle tissue in their chest area and no breasts and the assumption is erroneously made that somehow the weight training made their breasts go away whereas the truth is that the shrinkage came from the reduction in body fat and nothing else.

Weight Training Can Help You Look Better All Round!

That being said, natural female bodybuilders who don’t aspire to have 3% body fat levels (and can’t without the use of potentially dangerous male hormones, growth hormones, insulin and thyroid drugs) don’t tend to have the same flat chested look as their drug using counterparts, nor the thickly muscled pecs that many find a bit off putting. There is some reduction as they diet down, but most of the size lost in their chest area comes back when they resume eating normally. The other factor that can cause breast size to change is obesity- in which case the breasts become larger as body fat increases past healthy levels. Some women who are overweight look positively on this increase in breast size and are reluctant to exercise or diet for fear of reducing their bust size. For someone who is overweight to trim down to a really toned body, there will be some loss of breast size- from the loss of body fat. But keep in mind that weight training can help lift what remains and make you look better all round!

Kevin Richardson is the creator of Naturally Intense High Intensity Training 10 Minute Workouts™ and one of the most sought after personal trainers in New York City. Get a copy of his free weight loss ebook here. If you live in the New York metropolitan area and need help losing weight or taking your body to the next level give Kevin and his team a call at 1-800-798-8420 or click here to get started with 50% off your trial personal training session.

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Bodybuilding As A Spiritual Path

Sometimes truth contains apparent contradictions. Contradictions that come as a result of the intellect struggling to comprehend that which is beyond intellectual comprehension. Such truths speak to what lies well beyond the façade of ego and instead communicates directly with what we often term as the spirit within us. This spiritual side of ourselves is timeless and ever present, unaffected by the viscitudes of life and simply is. It is a side that so many choose to ignore but one that so many struggle to comprehend. Time has taught us that the physical can be a gateway towards the spiritual. By training the body we refine the spirit. By taking our physical self to an extreme place where intellect ceases to have meaning and our mental and physical selves unite in the completion of intense activity those able to endure will inevitably find themselves in a quiet place where another side can be glimpsed.

A silent side. A part of us that is powerful beyond all imagination, and a side of ourselves where all things are possible, and all hardships can be endured and overcome. Bodybuilding, on the surface, seems to relate almost exclusively with the physical. The body is developed through years of toil, struggle and self sacrifice  into a work of umistakable art. Sadly, today it remains largely a superficial pursuit where the emphasis is so much on the end that the means falls by the wayside. Drugs take away the almost Sishyean task of brutally hard training and rewards the user with instant gratification. The struggle then becomes a destructive one as one must risk more and suffer more to reach the higher levels as progress is determined not by the steadfastness of years but with the abilty to procure and survive overwhelming amounts of drugs. Even in the natural bodybuilding circle for most the culmination of the body as a true work of art is reserved for only specific times of the year, and in a competitive arena. While there may be no drugs involved the onus is on winning a competition and often health is compromised in other ways to help make this possible. After the period of competition for many caring for the body tends to wane falls until another season draws near.

The ‘Ura’ and the ‘Omote’ The Inner and Outer Aspects

In this modality, it is a limited pursuit, and one that the general public finds difficult to understand, much less to emulate, but it can be more. So much more, if we only let it. In the Japanese martial tradition that I teach and follow there is the concept of ‘omote’ and ‘ura’. ‘Omote’ refers to that which is on the outside, the superficial, while ‘ura’ refers to that which lies within, largely hidden from cursory observation. They are two sides that mirror each other but together constitute a whole. All practice begins with the outer manifestations- but for there to be true mastery there must be a movement away from that which lies at the surface and an internalization of the very practice itself. In all disciplines this comes only from years of focused study and toil. Few seek that which lies underneath the impressive veneer of bulging muscle and fat stripped sinew, but those that do find a path, a way of life, that develops more than biceps, rather one that nourishes both the physical and the spiritual.

To Truly Find The Path One Has To Step Away From The Superficial

The contradiction: In order to truly experience bodybuilding as a path, one must first make the difficult resolution to step away from the superficial. In bodybuilding it means no longer looking at the outer self as a gauge of progress. Contradictory, yes, but it is the first and perhaps the only path towards making the endeavor a sacred and lifelong internal process, as opposed to a fleeting and shallow pursuit. I remember well in my early years of training, jumping on the scale every day, measuring my arms at every opportunity and spending countless hours in front of any mirror or any reflective surface that I could find, all in the pursuit of some tangible manifestation of progress. Like so many others, I looked at every turn for a sign- something that would validate my pain, suffering and sacrifice. It is hard to put into words the struggle that it was for me to train so hard and see so little in the way of a return. The return of course was by no means little, but to a teenager bent on acheiving his goal the slowness of the process was as agonizing as the training. As the years went by, this ‘need’ for some form of validation was satisfied by contests and photo shoots, and the acclaim that it brought from my peers. Nevertheless, it though it remained a constant part of my daily routine, it was only after I made the decision to stay on my diet as a way of life bent on caring for myself as an individual, did I suddenly make the difficult step of abandoning the mirror.

As hard as it was, it was a necessity. The training, the discipline and most importantly, the joy and vitality of the experience became something far more rewarding than any trophy or screaming crowd could equal. In the gym, I would wear clothes that allowed me to see and connect with the outer aspects of my pursuit, but other than these brief times, the way I looked was of little concern to me. the focus falling now on the training. The irony of it, and herein the contradiction, is that I look better than I ever did, and I have continued to improve far more than I ever believed possible. All without the aid of any supplement, drug or crutch of any kind. The training became and is more. If we stop and find a way to quiet the noise within that we so often use to define ourselves, we feel ourselves almost in the presence of something else that resides within each of us. It is this self, ever tranquil and always at peace that adds the final dimension to the beings that we truly are.

Using The Pain Of Training To Form A Union Of Body And Spirit

Within the context of my training regime and philosophy, the body is carried to the point of complete and utter failure much like the practice of shugyo performed by the ascetics of my martial tradition. The weights becoming such an impossible and unbearable load that every fiber of your being screams to drop and be free of. Yet it is there, at the very borders of endurance that we learn that we can strive to do more. To go past the physical, and to do so requires an effort born of something else- something that lives well beyond the self imposed realms of pain and impossibility. Finding it, finding that place within, we achieve what appears to be almost superhuman, going far beyond our limits and into a place of infinite possibility and potential. It is this knowledge and mastery of self in all its forms that brings about true strength, a strength that is intrinsic and inseparable from who we are, and not an artificial one that is born of chemicals, pills and powders and thus virtually unknown by our spirit.

It is a strength that allows us to endure. A spiritual strength. One that carries over to every facet of our individual lives. A strength that has helped me accept that which is difficult in life, both emotionally and physically. A strength that springs from our own indomitable spirits, a force that recognizes, knows and accepts suffering as an inevitable part of life, and stands unaffected by it. This is a way of health, of compassion, caring and self development. True, you are rewarded with a strong and well toned physique and a vitality that can be defined only through experience, but throughout it all, the body in all its forms is respected and lovingly provided for. Diet, a term that before would invoke an idea of negativity, takes on an almost sacred air, becomes more and more an important part of the path. Thus, eating only that which is natural and wholesome and never even stopping to consider indulging in that which is harmful for our bodies becomes an effortless exercise.

Fasting As A Way Of Life

Fasting, an integral part of so many religious and spiritual practices is defined as the abstinence from food or drink in some form, with the idea of bringing the flesh closer to the spirit. While fasting is a temporary undertaking, within a religious context, this practice creates a fast that lasts for the duration of one’s very life. Abstaining from all that is potentially harmful creates a bond of respect to the physical body itself- one that will not be broken for any social tradition or custom, while also serving to build an unparalleled inner strength and a connection as well to all things spiritual. This abstinence and care in eating makes our most basic function- the consumption of food and water, an essential part of an even greater spiritual and physical pursuit.

Time, however, is the fire that allows all these elements to simmer together and stew into a perfect whole, and it should never be expected that such integration of body and spirit be realized instantaneously. For me it came after the toil of almost a decade and a half, but it is a struggle that bore great fruit, and a struggle where every fall brought me closer to a realization of something unimaginably rewarding. The reward that such a focus on the physical and the spiritual and the integration of every basic activity towards the realization of a higher plane is not only limited to the individual practicing it. Others see and are inspired themselves to strive towards the realization of their goals, and the creation of their own paths, founded as well on the idea bettering their overall health and fitness.

Those that find their way towards this path can know that as time draws on that we will always have the vitality and strength of good health and an inner musculature that will never be eroded by the ravages of time. We can have the clarity to know that all that we envision is indeed possible, but most of all, such a practice makes apparent that which lies beyond the material. A connection that manifests itself as well as a need, and a sincere desire to do all that we can to help others. A contradiction, once again in that the way of focusing on the self, ultimately becomes a portal towards helping and caring for others.

To truly focus on the inside, leads always once again the outside, but in a much more meaningful and fulfilling way. Thank you for reading.

Get a copy of Kevin’s free weight loss ebook here!

Kevin Richardson- celebrity Personal Trainer New York City is the creator of Naturally Intense™ High Intensity Training, a lifetime natural bodybuilder, head of Naturally Intense™ Personal Trainers NYC and one of the most sought after personal trainer in NYC.

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