We see body builders on television, on magazine covers and occasionally at the gym usually with a layer of shinny grease (a.k.a baby oil) and we think to ourselves, “I can barely fit into my pants now, if I lift weights- forget it!” Dr. Gary Hunter in an article for the American College of Sports Medicine explains,

“Although women can definitely increase muscle size, it should be understood that there is little chance of a woman becoming a behemoth and ending up with a body like Arnold Schwartzenegger. Without drug use or some very specialized training is undertaken for many years, women who resistance train normally just become very fit looking.”

Dr. Hunter goes on to explain the physiological differences between men and women and how that limits our mass making potential.“During maturation, women develop much less muscle mass than men. This means that an untrained woman has fewer muscle cells than an untrained man. This is especially the case for the shoulders and arms. Most if not all muscle growth in an adult occurs through increases in size of existing muscle cells, so the total potential for growth in a woman is less than in a man…”This is great news for the woman who is afraid to pick up weights. God has designed us so that the potential for “bulking up” is almost non-existent without the help of an outside stimulant. God has also designed our bodies to be different. Some of us are short, round, narrow, lean, broad, and tall. With that in mind, I would caution you not to have an unrealistic goal for “fit looking”. This post is meant to encourage you to lift weights not because you might become “fit looking” but because it’s beneficial for your body. Before I talk about the benefits I find it neccessary to debunk this myth.
There are many articles and resources available pertaining to this topic, to continue reading Dr. Hunter’s article click here.
Note: I do not know Dr. Hunter personally and cannot/do not endorse him nor his writings.

[1]WOMEN AND RESISTANCE TRAINING, The Right Program Brings Results for Females Who Train, Hunter, Gary R, Ph.D., CSCS, FACSM, ACSM, Fall 2002

This entry was posted on Friday, September 7th, 2007 at 3:14 pm and is filed under Weight Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.