All these started When the media start portraying women in the fitness world, looking like men with broad shoulders and muscular arms this made a huge clash in the mindset of the general population.
They started believing that this is what is going to happen to women if they enter into any kind of weightlifting workouts. WHICH IS COMPLETELY WRONG!!!
What they failed to understand is that these women who they see on the bodybuilding show are on anabolic steroids. which are the substances to enhance the rate of progress of their physique
Being a personal trainer I have been bombarded with many questions by my female clients when I started introduced them to weightlifting exercises.
it is funny here to explain that the term “TONING” was introduced to the fitness world by the marketing team in the early ’90s to calm these women down to understand that weight lifting does not make them build muscles like men but it makes them get more toned. Hence I use these terms to make them believe the same.
Generally, people think that they wake up with a bodybuilder physique when they start any weightlifting. Scientifically speaking the average muscle gain of a beginner is from 700grams to 1 kilogram per month and it varies over the months depends on the nutrition and recovery of the training program.
But when it comes to Fat loss the story is different. A healthy way of losing fat is 4 to 5kilograms per month.
What females need to understand is that the muscle is a very calorie expensive tissue to build with proper nutrition and recovery along with a planned progressive weight lifting program.
Once the muscles are built you feel stronger and can feel all physical movements like running and lifting groceries and kids become much easier.
What I meant by the muscle is a calorie-expensive tissue is that once you are in the above-mentioned level of energy you tend to burn more calories because these muscles require more energy to maintain. Hence you burn more fat.
This is the picture of an Olympic powerlifter in the women’s category. Remember these women are the elites of the elites in the world of weight lifting who has decades of consistent weight training and look how they look.
The women who look fat is what you need to understand that a woman can gain a certain amount of muscle over the years of weightlifting . since these competitions are on different weight class they needed extra fat to put on to be on the scale for the weight class. for them, they purposely eat to gain those extra calories as fat.
The women on the skinny side is the reality of what happens when women start lifting weights. they get more ” TONED”
Well, the point you need to take home from me is to get a clear idea about the myths that floating around women lifting weights.
once you have this mindset the next job is to get a dedicated coach who can help you learn the art of weightlifting with safe movement patterns.
So if you are interested or if you know someone whom you love who is interested to get trained. Please follow the link and am happy to assist through online coaching with regular follow-ups and guaranteed results.
What else you can do is to :
Maximize Your Time In The Gym
Do Less Cardio
Now that we understand the importance of adding muscle to get that toned look, that needs to become our focus. If you’ve already been doing more than 1.5 hours of total cardio during the week, you need to peel back. We need to focus our energies on speeding your metabolism back up so that you can add that muscle that will eventually shape your frame. Doing too much cardio, believe it or not, over time, will lower the speed of your metabolism, forcing you to eat way less than you should just to maintain, and hindering recovery.
Try to bring your cardio to 10,000 steps, or no more than 2-3 days of cardio at 30 minutes.
Works on MORE Resistance Training
You don’t need much to get the results you want. Most ladies only need 2-3 days tops of training to achieve their ideal physique. The real trick comes with proper programming on those days.
Full Body workout vs Body Split workout –
Always go for a full-body routine 2-3 times a week. You don’t need to be doing those typical bodybuilding bro splits. Those are for advanced lifters, on steroids, who can handle the excess volume.
What you required is a full-body workout routine, because every time you train a body part, it sends a signal to THAT body part to grow. That signal goes back to baseline after 48 hours. So if we can do a full-body 2-3 times a week, we are ideally sending that signal 2-3 times a week to grow our full body (versus only ONCE a week on a split routine).
Don’t do excessive reps or Don’t do till failure
You also don’t need to be training to failure. Your body over time will not be able to recover from it. Instead, take whatever rep range you are working in (let say 8-10 reps), and choose a weight that’s heavy enough for you to get all 10 reps with maybe 2-3 reps left in the tank. This allows for proper stimulation, without overtaxing the body.
Program Your Routine –
Different rep ranges stimulate the muscle differently. Stick with 3-5 (for bigger compound lifts), and 6-8, and 10-15 rep ranges for smaller body parts. Stick with that rep range for 4-6 weeks, deload, and then move onto the next rep range.
Do Compound Movements –
maximize your time in the gym with bigger compound movements like squat, deadlift, overhead press, row, and bench press. These will stimulate the most muscles at the same time (including your triceps, shoulders, and biceps), so you don’t have to spend all day in the gym. Train smarter, not harder. Only add more direct isolation work if you feel you want to bring up a lagging body part.
You might find at first when you lower the cardio, increase the calories, and increase the resistance training, that the scale doesn’t move. That’s okay. In fact, that’s perfect. If you followed the advice above and are lifting heavier weight each week, that means we’ve revved the metabolism up, and have your bodybuilding muscle while dropping a little bit of fat. The composition is changing in your favor!
I hope you found this guide helpful in making sure you maximize your time in the gym. If you follow these steps it will allow you to get the best results in the quickest time. It’s not about fancy new techniques or intense circuits. Having your ideal body just involves sticking to the fundamentals, consistently, over time.
