Recently at SWS we have had a few questions/comments about lifting weights and becoming bulky, yes these concerns/questions were from women. At SWS, strength training, barbell work and lifting weights is part of our program. To be honest, its the most important part of our program. By assessing our current client base most of our clients are just starting their fitness journey.
When people are first starting their journey everything they are doing is new. The routines, the movements, understanding and reading programs, this is all something from foreign territory. People just starting their fitness journey need to start out on a “slow” strict strength program. They need to understand the movements, practice them and slowly get stronger. We have to understand something, lifting weights will not make you look like Arnold Schwarzenegger or some body builder thats been lifting weights to look huge for the past decade. However, doing our strength training/structural balance work will make your body move in positions it was meant to. It will increase your overall strength and mobility during activities, daily tasks or performance in sports.
The common misconception is that we need to do “cardio” to “tone” up or get lean. My guess is that if your guilty of believing this, you probably have not seen great results in your body composition. Unfortunately we get caught up in the fitness magazines, articles online and tv advertisements with people being displayed having “6 pack” abs. However, we do not see the stories behind the pictures, most likely those individuals have dieted pretty hard to peak for that photo shoot. Ultimately it is not very “real” or even close to being sustainable to live like that.
The common myth that “lifting weights” will make you bulky is very hard to do. Even ask any male that has made it a goal to get “huge”, it definitely doesn’t happen over night, as it could take decades to achieve a large physique with proper training protocols, eating a ton of food, rest etc. Being a woman, this is even HARDER to do as women do not have the levels of testosterone like males do.
So the question, “how do I increase my lean body mass and improve my body composition”. Understand and put a lot of effort into the strength training/weight training components of the program, with consistent efforts in training, eating quality and enough protein, carbs and fats results will start to show.
Have any questions about this topic, do not hesitate to ask me!