For the general population, the concept of women and lifting heavy weights are incongruous – they just don’t seem to go together. As a result, a number of false beliefs have come to be accepted as common knowledge. It’s about time to separate the fact from the myth.*
Myth No 1: Lifting weights will make you too masculine
Weights are a tool. You are in control. If you want to pile on a ton of muscle then you’ll need a lot of hard work, food and supplements to achieve it. On the other hand, if your goal is to develop a sleek, athletic look, weights will get you to that goal, too.** But you will never look like a man – you just don’t have enough testosterone surging through your system.
Myth No 2: Bodybuilding will make you slower and more inflexible
When people first saw female bodybuilders, with all of those muscles, they naturally assumed that they’d be slow and ponderous. And, because bodybuilders use weights, it naturally followed that weight training would slow you down and make you more unathletic, right?
Wrong.
Weight training will, in fact, make a person a better athlete**. She’ll be faster, more agile and stronger. A stronger muscle can contract more quickly, thus producing more power. And exercising a muscle through it’s full range of motion enhances flexibility, along with joint strength and mobility. Thankfully sports coaches have been dragged out of the dark ages on this one. As a result, you’d be hard pressed to find a modern professional sports team’s training facility that doesn’t prominently feature a weights gym. Most of them even employ strength and weight training coaches. Why? Because they know that weight training produces better athletes.
Myth No 3: Weight training will make your breasts smaller
Your breasts are composed of fat. As you get leaner, some of that fat will go, along with the fat from other parts of your body. Because you can’t spot reduce, however, working an area like your chest will not specifically remove fat from your breasts. In fact, your chest training will lift and shape the pectoral muscles behind your breasts. This will, in effect, make your breasts appear larger.**
Myth No 4: Women should stay away from the heavyweights
To build muscle you need to lift heavy weight. Muscle responds to the stress that is placed upon it by way of resistance. If the weight is too light, the body will have no reason to respond. Your rep range, then, needs to pyramid down to heavy sets of six, with that last rep being the last one that you can do with that weight while maintaining strict form.
Myth No 5: Women need special supplements
The multi-billion dollar supplement industry would love you to believe that women and men need different supplements. It’s great for their bottom line. The truth is that, despite those cute pink protein powder containers, men and women both have the same needs when it comes to building muscle. They can both share the same protein tub and the same creatine bottle.
Myth No 6: Women should do weights for muscle building and cardio for fat loss
Both will burn calories. But only one will burn calories AND shape, reconfigure, firm up and build your body. Most people underestimate the amount of calories they can burn if they know how to train with weights properly for fat loss, and those are hidden in the Women’s Weightlifting Myths. If you have time to do both weights and cardio, do both. But if you don’t have time for both, then prioritize weight training – it does it all!
Conclusion
Bodybuilding is a health-promoting activity that will enhance a woman’s femininity while giving her the sleek lines of an Amazonian athlete. It will make her stronger, faster and sexier – and that’s no myth!
* Fitness Disclaimer
This website offers health, fitness and nutritional information and is designed for educational purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace, professional medical advice, diagnosis treatment. This website does not promise any specific results, as each individual responds differently to training.The author of this article is not a medical professional. We have volunteers in our organization from different aspects of health, nutrition, and fitness. Not just modern medicine doctors and physicians, but yoga teachers, spiritual teachers, martial arts teachers, and energy healers and we use all those resources to be able to provide the best and most proper advice to people around all walks of life. We do not have a defined goal, we only have a mission to help as many people as we can.