Myth Busted: "Women will get too bulky or muscular from training with weights and training heavy"
- Coach Tom NASM-CPT, Pn1
- Feb 16, 2020
- 10 min read
Time and time again I hear the same old tale about how women who lift heavy weights will look manly, bulky, muscular, chunky, etc. I have been working primarily with women for the past 4 years and a large amount of them are always told the same thing by random creepy dudes in the gym and uneducated trainers. So, this is my attempt at putting an end to the myth that; women shouldn't lift weights OR heavy weights and women will get too muscular from doing so.
In this article I'll go over some of the reasons as to why this isn't true and why it's so commonly misunderstood.
First I think its important to highlight that men and women have very similar potential to grow muscle. However, some reasons as to why women don’t gain muscle like men is because of a few notable reasons:
Women generally start out smaller, with more bodyfat, and have lower levels of the muscle building hormones than men
As far as the hormonal differences,
staying on the surface of this topic and speaking about the two most easily publicly recognizable ones, testosterone and estrogen... men can have 15x more testosterone than women and women can have 9x more estrogen than men. These differences allow men to grow sick beards (just like mine) and they play a key role in the regulation of development and maintenance of male characteristics, male sex organs, and more at puberty.
As far as estrogen goes, because of their higher levels, women are more likely to handle doing more work per workout and more workouts because they can recover from it better (estrogen FTW!). This would also mean that women are more likely to be better at doing higher reps than men and women are more likely to be better at doing more reps at a given intensity than men again because their ability to recover is somewhat superior compared to men's on a hormonal level.
Because of these differences women generally start out smaller and genetically have less muscle and carry more body fat. So that leaves them with more work to do, although they can gain at a very similar rate to men. Resistance training doesn't discriminate! Resistance training is also an amazing thing but, it's not magic! You don't just start lifting weights -light or heavy, and get super muscular especially at an uncontrollable rate. Getting a really muscular appearance usually takes years (YEARS) of consistent hard work and dedication and sometimes, extreme measures.
But why do we see some women who are insanely in shape? Well, look at their sport and coaching. Here are some sports and athletes where you see women who are absolutely crushing it and in phenomenal shape;
Elite CrossFit Athletes,
World Class Powerlifters,
Amateur and Pro Bodybuilders,
some Amateur and Pro Olympic Lifters, etc.
All these athletes are just that! World Class, Elite and Professional. It takes more than you can imagine to “get there” and “stay there”. Take CrossFit athletes who happen to have capped shoulders and 6-pack abs. They are athletes and their goal is to be named the fittest on earth. Straight from the official CrossFit website itself,
"The CrossFit Games are the ultimate proving grounds for the Fittest Man and Fittest Woman on Earth™ and are world-renowned as the definitive test of fitness."
If their true goal is to achieve that, along the road they get in really great shape with abs and really visible muscle definition as a result of the consistent and grueling training process and nutrition & lifestyle habits.
Which brings me to my second reason...
2. Your coach, in the gym you’re at, right now, probably isn’t a World Class, Elite Athletic Coach.
But what if they are? Well, if you tell them your goals is to lose 10-30lbs and feel comfortable in your bathing suit and they *accidentally* get you to a world class athletic level I’d really question their methods, but this’ll never happen on accident. If a woman came to me asking to help get her “beach lean” or “toned” (something I hear often and usually means "I want to lose 10-30lbs and feel comfortable at the beach") and I *accidentally* got her to be the next CrossFit games champion, I’d probably be training elite athletes for the rest of my life 🤣. I'd also have not listened to her and her goals at all! But it’s the job of the coach to listen to the goals and accurately create steps and guide clients to them. That would be quite a big misstep. Also, I'd like to point out that it is the Coaches job to help the client understand what is truly best for them and help them better understand fallacies, extremes, fads, etc.
Ex: Making sure your clients know that lifting some heavy weights will not make them look like the next CrossFit games champion if that is not their goal.
The next popular question is this...
Why do some women happen to have a more "muscular" appearance?
-Note, this is dependent on what you define as "muscular".
Women who have a more muscular appearance may;
have lower body fat levels that allow more visible muscle definition and vascularity to show (due to the possibility of better genetics or previous sport/training history, etc.),
be training for a specific athletic event that requires a higher level of training frequencies, loads or movements (I mean weights, reps, and exercises), specific conditioning protocols, more dedication, persistence, and hard work than your average gym goer,
be following a specific nutrition plan to get to a certain physical and visual body image and/or be competing in a natural federation of bodybuilding or physique competition and has to aim for a specific body image,
already be an athlete in great shape and trying to maintain/improve that great shape,
be in great shape to begin with and started to really dial in on their training and nutrition and as a result, they look more "in shape", "muscular", etc.,
be competing in a sport for a living/career and as a result they are in great shape
Even women who lift really heavy weights like powerlifters and Olympic weight lifters don't always look super muscular and manly. It's a poor stereotype that ends up having women turn away from resistance training --something that is truly beneficial for anyone's health.
Another topic to point out would be that women have a menstrual cycle and men don't. This would ultimately make it MORE difficult to manage consistent training and nutrition practices if you're not working with someone who knows what is happening at what time. Here, we'll take a general look at what most women experience during their cycle:
3. The Menstrual cycle often disrupts most women's results because they don't know what to do when their hormones, energy, cravings, and more is being affected
This is completely anecdotal, but in my experience working with women they do not know that performance does indeed vary between the follicular and luteal phases. They would only "feel" that they can or cant do something because of their individual symptoms. Here is a very brief overview of the menstrual cycle and the phases in relation to just estrogen and progesterone.
During the early follicular phase;
- estrogen and progesterone are lower
During the late follicular phase:
-estrogen will rise rapidly
-progesterone will remain lower
During ovulation:
-estrogen drops
During the mid luteal phase:
-progesterone will rise rapidly
-estrogen will rise
During the late luteal phase:
-estrogen and progesterone will both drop to then start the cycle again
*Note: I am not a doctor, hormonal specialist, women's fitness specialist, endocrinologist, etc. The information above is based on what I could find while doing research from people who are more experienced and professionals in this area.*
Because of this, training can be heavier or more strength based during the follicular phase and lighter or more hypertrophy based during the luteal phase (1)(2).
I like to remember this like so:
Follicular: strength focus
Luteal: lighter hypertrophy
Training general population clients this is sometimes not so much as the focus because most struggle with consistency. So, the bigger picture is that they'll benefit from anything and that consistent effort is a win!
This also correlates to nutrition because during the luteal phase women are generally more hungry and tend to eat more during this phase (3). This would be a great time for that lighter training stated above or a deload in your program. HOWEVER, everyone is different and how each person experiences their own cycle will be different, so to each their own here.
Another notable thing I wouldn't want to leave out is that some people don't think getting slightly leaner and maybe some rounded, more defined shoulders and arms is a bad look for them. At some point you have to respect the persons ideal image of themselves. Being in a gym I've heard everything from "you shouldn't be lifting like that/that much", and "oh you're a girl, you don't need to lift all that weight!". Well nobody has to lift anything really, but this is how the person is choosing to express themselves and more. Most Coaches are well aware that lifting heavy as a female isn't going to make them this massive manly beast, shit... most men never even get to "massive manly beast" level no less know how or maintain it, but those who are misinformed still don't see this.
Another major point in this which was mentioned earlier is the nutrition. If you want to look like a bodybuilder you will very likely need the nutritional environment to do so. That means a calorie surplus for a certain timeframe and maybe adding in some supplements if necessary. Often times if you look at what elite athletes consume on a daily basis it is nowhere near what your average gym goer consumes and rightfully so, they are very different populations with very different goals and needs.
In my experience working with women, most of the time a lot of them come to me not eating enough protein daily, usually mildly dehydrated, and struggles to "stay on track" on the weekends. In addition, I've seen people who believe they are eating little but eat a lot on the weekends or experience some kind of binging behavior where they eat a lot more food or very calorie dense foods causing them to average too many calories on a weekly basis which causes weight (fat) gain. My point being, most women --at least ones that I meet with, don't have a steady or sustainable nutrition routine they follow that also supports their goals, oh and men too, we're not exempt here, fellas. This lack of routine also does not support gaining "too much muscle", "getting too manly", etc.
When you match sound nutritional choices with a solid training routine that is specific to the individual and their goals you generally see people get leaner and get stronger without them looking like an elite athlete (this is again, dependent on their goals and the coaches path to reaching them). But look at almost any well established personal trainers testimonial profile that works with general population. Most of the transformations are from rather unhealthy to pretty healthy and on occasion you have some that are in excellent shape --and I mean excellent as in like, single digit body fat, excellent, with the lifestyle habits to support it. Not everyone will reach even remotely close to that also because of their commitment. Some people just don't love their experience.
However, on a more practical note, here are just two of my all star clients lifting weights they thought they wouldn't be able to and would go against the stereotype of advising women to lift heavy:
Kat crushing 1.25x her body weight on a deadlift:
-Kat also lost 33lbs while getting stronger
Brianna crushing 1.35x her body weight on a deadlift:
-Brianna's long term goal was to gain muscle and strength while learning exercises. She not only gained strength (as shown above), but now she is very consistent with her training and nutrition!
To all that I will leave you with my final points regarding general population clients or everyday people/transformation clients who aren't in good shape.
You will not accidently gain too much muscle, get too strong, or look manly from training to feel comfortable in your own skin.
You will need to go to extremes, in most cases when it comes to your training, nutrition, lifestyle, recovery and mobility methods to become or at least look anything like an elite athlete and stay one.
When you see a female who happens to be in absolutely incredible shape much like a CrossFit athlete, remember it might be because that is indeed what their goal is or it's from the result of another goal of theirs. Note, they are likely doing A LOT to do what they can and look the way they look and that is their choice.
Training hard and lifting heavy weights will not make you look manly, it is often what gives women the "sexy" appearance they are looking for, but again read point two.
Men and women can gain results at almost the exact same rate, but women start out smaller and genetically have less muscle and more body fat so it can take them much longer to see results, which is a solid reason alone as to why they won't "look like men" from strength training.
Building off the bullet point above getting a really muscular appearance usually takes years (YEARS) of consistent hard work and dedication. Often times, only serious athletes, elite or world class level athletes will only be willing to put in that kind of commitment and endure it.
It is unfortunately very common for misinformed trainers/coaches and their clients to believe that weight training and heavy training will cause a substantial and unwanted change in their appearance for the worse.
No one "accidentally" gets too jacked from going to the gym. Not men, not women.
Women with uneducated coaches (who may actually be doing their absolute best) will have an even more difficult time getting results no less end up looking too muscular.
Lifting weights with the goal of losing some weight and gaining some strength, or feeling comfortable in your own skin will not result in a "males" physique unless you're willing to go to extremes.
There is practically no evidence supporting the claim that "women will get too bulky or muscular from training with weights and training heavy" unless advanced training and nutrition protocols are used. In which general population/transformation clients really shouldn't be following those protocols anyway. If they are... they're likely not general population/transformation clients.
All in all, go and lift some heavy weights! Don't lift "like a man", lift like a lady who is here to get shit done, get some results, and get strong. You have nothing to be worried about in terms of getting "too muscular".
P.S. If some of the bullet points seem repetitive above, it's because I intended them to be. This myth needs to go and I hope this article helps it find the door!
Thanks for reading and I hope you see this information valuable and helpful to you! If you have any questions please leave a comment below and I'll be happy to answer as soon as I can.
-Tom
References
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