… that you don’t lift more than 45 kilograms or you will become huge like a professional bodybuilder! well, at least that’s what this ingenius article on women’s weight training says.
"Will I become bulky?
Not necessarily. Professional bodybuilders purposely bulk up by taking testosterone and lifting heavy weights (45 kilograms or more). However, if you do more repetitions using lighter weights, it’s unlikely you’ll get bigger, even if you have a genetic predisposition to bulking up."
i rarely post but i read this article on msn.ca and just had to tell someone!
I wonder if my friend’s personal trainer read that article. My friend is conviced that if she does any work with low reps + high weight she will instantly bulk up. Regardless of the fact that her diet sucks, both in terms of quantity and quality. After all, her trainer told her that women should never do anything less than 10-12 reps per set, and that if a weight makes you struggle, then it is too heavy. Also, if you start sweating while lifting, you are going to hurt yourself. The only time you should sweat is when doing lots of cardio, preferably on an ellipse machine or stationary bike.
When I tried to explain some of the fallacies in those suppositions, my friend replied, very defensively and with a somewhat insulted tone, that “women and men are built differently, and that [she] has read a lot about it.”
Gaaah!!!
Then again, she does not want to change her body composition, just “tone up”. When I explained that “toning” involves gaining muscle and losing fat, she archly told me that I was wrong.
must…not…kill…
rant over
Note: I am not really asking for advice on this, I just had to rant about it.
No, she wouldn’t flip over this. She WOULD flip if she found a member of T-Nation taking this advice seriously and telling people “I’m a woman, so I need to train differently so I don’t get all bulky and muscly.”
Alternately, she’d flip if a woman claimed to need steroids to be able to lift heavy or change body comp. Patricia was a great proponent (and example) of what women can accomplish on their own by training smart.
I think we have many T-Women here now who are cut from the same cloth, and put the lie to ignorant statements re: limiting what women do in the gym. From HotAZ to JillyBop to ~karma~ and more–we’ve got an amazing Gang o’ Babes here.