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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© KevinRichardson for Naturally Intense High Intensity Personal Training™ Blog, 2010. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: body fat, bodybuilding, exercise, fat loss, female bodybuilder, female bodybuilding, self image, training, weight loss

Steroids In Sports Are Here To Stay! 

98% of Olympians polled in 1995 said they would use drugs if they wouldn’t be caught.

In 1995 a Chicago physician, Bob Goldman, asked 198 Olympic-level U.S. athletes whether they would be willing to take a banned substance if they were guaranteed to win and not get caught; 195 said yes. More than half of them went on to say that they would take the drug if it would enable them to win every competition for five years even if it would kill them.

As alarming as it may sound, it’s the truth and for all the hue and cry about the need to clean up the sporting arena of illegal drug use, it is really all a flimsy façade and one that has support from the highest levels downwards.
Take competitive bodybuilding for example, few people in the general public know that there are two completely different types of bodybuilding, drug tested contests- where the athletes are given either a polygraph test or their urine is tested to ensure that they are not using anabolic steroids and a list of other banned substances. Most of you probably have never seen a natural bodybuilder (besides me!) or even knew that there is a difference. (As an aside: Many make the mistake of seeing me and wondering whether or not I use drugs, but truth be told if you saw me standing next to a modern professional drug using bodybuilder there would be little question, since I would look like a anorexic girl in spite of all my 20 years of hard training and my accomplishmentes as a natural athlete!)

Steroids In Sports: The Public Side Of Steroid Use- Professional Bodybuilding

Yes, there is another other side of the coin, and the more popular version by far are the non drug tested shows. It might surprise you to learn that these are the bodybuilders that grace the covers of the muscle magazines (natural bodybuilding has its own magazine as well, but its readership is negligible when compared to the millions of reader of their drug using counterparts). The bodybuilders you occasionally see on television use steroids, as do the ones that cross over to the film industry- a certain California governor included.
These images of men and women inflated to almost comic book like proportions are what most people think of when they hear the word ‘bodybuilder’. Sadly for women in general, female drug bodybuilding, which essentially will masculinize the bodies of women using steroids has made most women shy away from the idea of lifting weights, as the misconception is there that they will end up looking like some of the girls with masculine features. This isn’t true, but since there is no real movement to define to the general public what a drug user looks like and what a natural athlete looks like, it is hard for them to think any other way.

Both Are Hard Training Top Female Bodybuilders- One Competes In Drug Tested Contests & One Doesn't. See Any Difference?

 Now some may say that steroids are harmless when taken in moderate doses over a short period of time, but the fact of the matter is that to attain the size and definition required to stand on a national stage as a competitive male bodybuilder, you will need to use a combination of several different anabolic steroids, in addition to human growth hormone, insulin (yes, that’s right, insulin is  major part of the bodybuilder chemistry set) and diuretics. In the good Governor’s time, steroid use was rampant as well, but the doses were lower and even then the amounts that they used to look the way they did would be considered insane by clinical standards. As time went on, more and more athletes tried to push the envelope of inhuman size and definition and so more and more drugs kept being added to the cocktail.

Steroids In Sports- Professional Athlete or Professional Drug User?

Today’s professional bodybuilder can spend anywhere from $30,000 to as much as $100,000 or more to look the way they do. They don’t follow pristine diets and try to live as in as healthy a manner as possible, that is a myth that is used to sell magazines and questionable supplements, the bottom line is getting as big and as fat free as possible. Nothing else matters and to be honest, most of them eat no different from the way the general public does in terms of junk food and the like in the offseason.
Is it glamorous? Yes and no. The fan base, (small though it may be as the male athletes are now far too big to appeal to the tastes of most people in the general public and the female athletes are simply too scary for mainstream media to even look at) does exist and if you are at the very top of the sport you may be able to make some money from endorsements and guest appearances but there is a downside. At those doses, your life is pretty much centered around eating, sleeping and training and there is really no way for you to do the things that most people do. Climbing a flight of stairs at over 300lbs isn’t easy when nature would have had you at 175 lbs and I can tell you from personal experience as one that has worked with many of them, that the experience is pure misery.
From abscesses, to muscle tears, to strange fevers, the pain of the site injections, loss of energy, sex drive and so much more make up the lives of many of the athletes touted by many as the ultimate in human physical perfection. The numerous trips to the E.R. as well aren’t covered in the magazines, only when one of the troupe is unfortunate enough to die as a result of their use- at which point the industry as a whole is first to say that there is no proof that their drug use caused their death. As one that has worked with addicts over the past 14 years the similarities are considerable-  but at the end of the day, a professional bodybuilder today is really a professional drug user, and given the inability of so many of them to be able to stop- and the overall behavior, and culture as a whole, I would say professional addict.

Government Policy Towards Steroid In Sports 

Now, what does this have to do with sports, as bodybuilding is a fringe activity at best? Simple, if the most blatant use of drugs is not stopped by either the government or the upper echelon of the sport, why would they devote their time to stopping athletes whose use is almost undetectable to the average human eye? Take baseball for example. People pay money to see athletes throw the ball faster and hit the ball harder than they ever could. Mediocrity doesn’t sell, but record breaking performance does. The same applies for everything from boxing to American football to a host of other sports. In many cases, steroids are used in small amounts to help recovery so they can train more often and get better at what they do, or to help injuries heal faster- steroids are fantastic anti-inflammatory drugs. They don’t take drugs to the degree that say the bodybuilder does, nor do they train and consume an inhuman amount of food they way a bodybuilder would, so they don’t ‘jacked up’ as one would say. The crowd loves a winner and if you recall the statement by the Olympians at the top of the post that they would use drugs if they were sure they wouldn’t get caught, what would stop the boxer, baseball player or any other sportsman from thinking the same way?
Add to it the insane amounts of many given to athletes based on their performance and I would go out on a limb and say that over 90% of every sports fan would use drugs if it would make them able to play their game better and allow them to rake in millions of dollars. Wouldn’t you at least consider it? Especially since the amounts that are used in most sports are really not that much and are under the supervision of a physician in most cases? Be honest and you will find that the immorality of steroid use that the media portrays is nothing more than typical human behaviors. The powers that be know that their athletes are using drugs, but they also know that the crowd loves what they do and that they are making them very wealthy- thus there is no real incentive to put real testing in place. When an athlete is past their prime and the government and or media is on their backs they might ‘find’ a positive test or two from some of their athletes that happen to be on their way out of the game anyway- but those tests are almost always several years old. Why the delay? I will let you figure that our yourself.

The Governor Of California Is The Main Sponsor Of The Biggest Steroid Show In The World

Getting back to bodybuilding, Arnold Schwarzenegger did  a lot to influence so many impressionable young men to get into bodybuilding, and as they went on I the pursuit of looking like him many learned that Arnold had a little help and so got a little help of their own. Arnold Schwarzenegger almost single handedly made the steroid look publicly acceptable. He admitted his use very early on, and yet today as governor fo California and chief law enforcement officer of the state, he still sponsors and lends his name to the biggest convention of steroid users in the world, the Arnold Classic. A weekend of bodybuilding and other sports that the good Governor always attends. Do you really think that in a country where the Chief Officer of a state lends his name and image to a steroid rally that stopping drug use is a real priority. Perhaps more importantly, in a world where athletes make millions, we overlook the small detail that the team owners and sports officials that run and manage the games make billions, and that they are not going to give up their income anytime soon. Most telling is our own attitudes. We are a nation of winners, of great performers and we love our sportsmen to be the best. Add that to the thoughts of a young and upcoming teen athlete and his or her coach and you should understand that the drugs are not going anywhere unless we all change as a people.

Kevin Richardson is a lifetime drug free bodybuilder and founder of the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise. You can visit his official website at www.naturallyintense.net

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© KevinRichardson for Naturally Intense High Intensity Personal Training™ Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arnold schwartzennegger, female bodybuilder, female bodybuilding, steroids, steroids in sports

Team Naturally Intense Member & Lifetime Drug Free Female Bodybuilder, Mariya Mova

Female Bodybuilders That Don’t Use Drugs Don’t Look Like Men

Bodybuilding for women has in recent times been relegated to a freak show with most of the female athletes today that we see in the media resorting to the use of anabolic steroids and other illegal and potentially dangerous drugs to achieve their almost unworldly look. Sadly, this has cast a shadow over what a woman would really look like without the use of drugs, and makes many women fearful of lifting weights for fear of looking like the women they so often see in the magazines. The truth is that without drugs, women do not at all look like men, as Team Naturally Intense Member, Mariya Mova demonstrates.

Female Bodybuilders- Then & Now

It’s a sad state of affairs as in the 1980′s when female bodybuilding first came onto the scene it was an extremely popular sport. My friend Wayne DeMilia and I spoke once about the state of female bodybuilding today as opposed to when he helped organize the first Ms. Olympia contests and it is truly a night and day comparison. The original female bodybuilders like Rachel Mclish, Carla Dunlap, Cory Everson and the like were so popular that every Ms. Olympia contest was held separately from the men’s competitions and were popular enough to sell out even at Madison Square Garden!

Before The Increase In Steroid Use Female Bodybuilders Were Once Very Much Part Of Popular Culture

Wayne told me that when Rachel Mclish was featured in the early Muscle Builder magazines (now Flex magazine) they sold more copies than ever- so much so that the Weiders felt that they should capitalize on the demand for female bodybuilders and the softer look with a whole new magazine and thus Muscle and Fitness was created- essentially due to the popularity of female bodybuilders. Female bodybuilders were also a part of the mainstream popular culture- Cory Everson had a regular workout program on television and Rachel Mclish went on to star in several action type movies. Today the Ms. Olympia contest is relegated to a second tier status as an aside to the men’s show. Attendance is low and even the hardcore bodybuilding magazines don’t cover female bodybuilding simply because there is little interest in the idea of women chemically enhanced to the point where they look more like their male counterparts as opposed to a highly feminine and attractive sculpted female physique.

Female Bodybuilders Are Not Masculine

It does women a true disservice as well in that so many women don’t realize that the toned and sculpted physique that they are looking for comes from serious weight training and that they have little to fear from hard training. Even after years of hard work, women don’t get overly big as the pictures show and all the female bodybuilders pictured have been training for at least a decade or more! So ladies, if you really want to get into great shape- start lifting!

Related articles:

Female Bodybuilders & Steroid Use

Celebrity personal trainer NYC, Kevin Richardson is the creator of  Naturally Intense High Intensity Training™, a lifetime natural bodybuilder and one of the most popular personal trainers in New York City. Get a copy of his free weight loss ebook here.

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© KevinRichardson for Naturally Intense High Intensity Personal Training™ Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: female bodybuilder, female bodybuilding, mariya mova