Myths about Women and Weights

Recently, I've grown more and more convinced that there is some seriously bad information out there about women lifting weights and all the chronic cardio that some feel the need to do.  Actually, I've been thinking down this line for more and more for a couple years now, but only recently been able to truly put my finger on it.

Thanks to the book, "The New Rules of Lifting for Women" by Lou Schuler and Cassandra Forsyth, M.S., finally a light has been shown on what I've been pondering for years.  I'm going to highlight a few myths that Schuler talks about.

• Muscles in men and women are essentially identical!

A muscle fiber is a muscle fiber is a muscle fiber guys!  In 1990, the journal of Sports Medicine said "Unit for unit, female muscle tissue is similar in force output to male muscle tissue.... There is no evidence that women should train differently [from men]."

Interesting right?  Yet every time I go to the gym, I see a woman holding a 2 pound dumbbell and doing 300 reps of bicep curls!  Could you imagine a man doing this?  Yet our muscles are made of the same stuff!

• No workout will make you taller!

This has bothered me for so long that I can't stand it any more.  How many times have we seen a workout or machine or system that will give you the "long, sleek muscles of a dancer"???  Here's reality.  Your muscles are genetically predetermined in shape.  You can't change it unless you Marty McFly back and encourage your mother to ditch George and hook up with Biff after all!

• Results come from lifting heavy weights!

You won't want to hear this - it's going to seriously mess with your sense of what you're supposed to do in the weight room.  Muscle Strength DOES NOT EQUAL Muscle Endurance.  :(  Big frowny face!  I too wish I could just hang out and lift my 10 pound barbell 400 times and look like Arnold, but that's not the case.  You want your muscles to grow!

This puts me on a totally different rant about toning.  What is that "Toned" look that people talk about?  Go ahead, think about it - describe it to me....

Here's what it is.

Muscles showing that aren't covered in fat.  Definition between your muscles that isn't all mushy.  Who doesn't want that - but to get there, you need to cut the fat and increase the size of muscles.

Building strength increases size, building endurance increases.... well.... endurance.

• But Steve...... I don't want to get BULKY!!!!

UGH.

Yo.  This is simple.  I do want to get bulky and have been trying for the better part of a year.  IT'S FREAKING HARD!  And I'm a man, filled to the brink with all my manly hormones and taking a bucket of supplements.  And eating a pretty serious surplus of calories.

Are you doing these things?  No???  Ok, then let's just put this silly bulky talk to bed.  Worst case scenario... you bulk up a tiny bit in the shoulders.  Cut your calories just a bit and you'll be back down to your old size in weeks.  For most of us, broad shoulders and a tiny waist is a nice thing - I think if you tried it on for size, you'd be impressed.

I'm leaving out a ton of nutrition stuff that's been bugging me for a while here, I'll get to it later.  This was just to tell you women-folk..... LIFT HEAVIER!  If you can do a 10th rep - guess what - you picked too light of a weight!

If you don't believe me - awesome!  I sort of hope you don't - go try it!  Eat your protein, lift heavy and see what happens!

Yours in health and fitness (and heavy ass weights)...
Steve