Both men and women have asked
me this same question over the years. Women asking for themselves and men
asking for their wives and/or girlfriends.
Women are afraid that if
they lift heavy weights, they will bulk up like a man. The bad news, for
people like myself who want to bulk up, is that women, unfortunately or
fortunately, do not have the same hormones that men do and therefore will
not bulk up and gain size like a man. It is physically impossible.
This is good news for some
women because the last thing that they want is to look masculine. Well,
don’t worry, women, you can lift hard and furiously and you will never
look like a power lifter unless you are taking steroids, which I am totally
against. A woman’s thyroid can be adversely affected by steroid use
accompanied by many damaging side effects. Once this happens, the effects
can take two to three years to reverse if ever.
To have the perfect muscular
female physique, it is important to remember that along with weight training
and some sort of cardiovascular exercise, one of the main components is
a good diet. Stretching your body is also crucial to staying healthy
and fit.
There are certain
exercises women need to focus on since our bodies are different from
men. Here are some very important weight lifting tips:
Chest: Women
need to focus on incline presses to develop the upper chest muscles.
This can be done with dumbbells, barbells or the Smith machine. Also incline
flies are important to help develop the separation in the upper pecs.
Do not cut out the other chest exercises; just make sure to focus a little
harder on your upper chest.
Back: Most
women are not as broad as the average man, so when you are doing lat pull
downs, make sure your grip is not to the ends of the bar. The average lat
pull down bar curves down and the curve is where you would grip the bar.
Lat pull downs to the front is one great exercise. Close grip pull
downs to your chest and seated rows are also great for women. Another exercise
that is good for the lower back is high rep hyperextensions with a five
or ten pound plate
Shoulders: Women
do not usually have strong shoulders, which might be due to the lack of
use of their upper body or simply evolution. To develop your delts, you
do not have to lift heavy like a man. High reps when doing shoulders
is key. When you are doing seated shoulder presses with a barbell,
you should have two bars ready to use; one heavy, the other light.
This is so that you can lift heavy and quickly drop the weight and keep
the set going with the lighter weight until you feel the burn. This is
called ‘drop setting’. This can also be done on the Smith by quickly removing
and replacing the plates. Another important exercise is ‘side laterals’.
Try to do these with your arms straight out at your sides. Drop set on
these as well. Your rear delts need to be worked as well to have symmetrical
development in your shoulders. You can do these sitting backward on a pecdeck
or bending over using light dumbbells. Some gyms have machines specifically
designed for rear delt workouts.
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