Bulky Women (part 2) 

The second important thing you need to build muscle is the proper training program.

The program needs to be intense enough to overload your muscular system and signal your body to start building more muscle.  Remember that you also have to be eating enough calories too. And we are talking about a lot of calories.

The training programs used for muscle growth (hypertrophy) use high intensity and high volume weight lifting.  The way to overload muscle is to make it lift more weight than it’s used to.  Body builders are sometimes jokingly referred to as “gym rats” because they spend so much time there.  It’s not because they can’t find anywhere else to hang out, it’s because they have to do so many sets and repetitions and include enough rest between those sets. 

Some bodybuilders even train multiple times during the day for hours at a time. 

Most of us can’t afford to spend the time most bodybuilders need to spend shaping their bodies. 

I’ll discuss the third component to building muscle in the next post so keep a lookout.

Can women get bulky?

The answer is yes, but not as easily as most people think.

I have some individuals (women mainly) tell me all the time that they want to tone up their muscles with weight training, but they don’t want to get bulky.

What most people don’t realize is how hard it is for anyone to gain lean muscle, even guys. Successful body builders, either male or female must adhere to strict diets in order to gain the maximum amount of lean muscle, and they spend a lot of time lifting weights and doing cardio in order to create the specific look they want. In some cases, bodybuilders use androgenic steroids or other supplements to enhance muscle gain.

Building muscles requires three important things.

First, you must eat more calories than you are burning on a consistent, daily basis.

Bodybuilders eat a lot, I MEAN A LOT!

To gain muscle you would need to increase the amount of calories you eat by 500 or more per day depending on how big you want to get.

Any weight gain will always include both lean weight (which is muscle, bone, water and other stuff) and fat. If you are burning a lot of calories with exercise and you keep your caloric intake the same, then you will actually lose weight.

The take home point here is that if you don’t want to build big muscles, don’t eat more than what your body can use. Regardless of how heavy you lift weights, if your caloric intake remains the same or decreases, then you are not going to build any more muscle. Your muscles will repair themselves and you will get stronger, but not by building muscle.