Toning and Bulking
I will die on this hill. I need people to stop saying this. Women will say, I don’t want to bulk up, I just want to tone. This is typically said in a consultation or just while discussing their goals for our future sessions. Guuurrrrrrrlllllll you cannot bulk if you wanted to. You do not have enough testosterone in your body! You would need to be injecting the human growth hormone into your veins daily along with testosterone, and some unicorn blood.
Men have 4-20 times more testosterone than women and that is why if they look at a dumbbell their bicep grows.
Also men have more muscle fibers than women. Specifically type II muscle fibers, those would be the ones you need for quick movements like sprints or additional strength or power used when lifting weights. Type 1 muscle fibers are more of an endurance type and women have more of those. Type 1 muscle fibers don’t tire as quickly as Type 2. Women have a higher ability for endurance and men have higher ability for power and speed. Men would fatigue immediately trying to give birth while women are all set.
I do not know when women began to think they can bulk if they lift weights. It baffles me! I also don’t know when people started saying bulk, it makes me think you will walk around with cement blocks as quads resembling some kind of Marvel character if you lift just one weight. As someone who wants muscle and does not have much at all, I find this thinking quite silly.
I have been lifting weights for the better part of this century and I can say I’m short about 50 lbs of muscle. As someone who has lifted weights or exercised since 1996…here I am, to my disappointment with not a lot of muscle or bulk for that matter.
I did have a client say at her initial consultation that she wanted to get strong and build muscle, but that she did not want to look like me. I’m fine. It was fine. I was actually kind of happy it looked like maybe I was a person who had a little muscle.
The point is it’s okay to lift weights, it’s okay to want to get stronger as a woman. You won’t have any pesky, bulky muscle to show for it for a long while, but mostly it will be never. Not without testosterone and not without a vile of blood from a dragon, so stop saying tone and bulk. Keep those words away.
The main thing that will change from lifting weights is the way your clothes sit on your body, maybe your jeans will be held up a bit more by your ass. Maybe there will be less showing under your shirts as things have shrunk underneath it. You will lose inches. That is what you can expect, not giant man shoulders unable to fit through a doorway or thick thick cylinder block thighs.
Lifting weights makes things smaller. It makes tissue change from large and full to smaller and a little more firm. I think we’ve all seen those fat replicas that are that gross shade of yellow. Think of that shrinking in size and not feeling as soft. Keep that in your head the next time you’re lifting weights. Eliminate this thinking that you will bulk up into Sheman. I assure you, you will not.