Strength training has many benefits for both men and women, including increased metabolism, stronger bones, lower blood pressure, reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, increased self-esteem and anti-aging benefits to name just a few. However, many women are put off by strength training because they fear that training with weights will make them bulk up.
If this sounds like you, here’s three reasons why you don’t need to worry:
1) You don’t have enough testosterone to cause muscle bulking
Testosterone is the main hormone that makes muscles bulk up. On average women have about 5% of the average amount of testosterone a man has. This means that women don’t have the right hormonal conditions to bulk their muscles up.
2) You have more of the muscle fibers that are less prone to growth
2) Our muscles have a mix of slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibers in them. Although both types of muscle fibers can grow, fast twitch muscle fibers have a much higher potential for growth than the slow-twitch fibers. On average, women have a higher percentage of slow- twitch muscle fibers in their bodies than men do, which means they have more of the fibers that have less potential for growth.
3) Inflammation is not the same as muscle bulking
During a workout, you create tiny tears in your muscles. Your body responds to this by repairing those tears and in doing so making the muscles stronger than they were before. Part of this repair process involves inflammation, and as the muscles feel inflamed, they’ll ache a bit and feel tighter to you. Sometimes this feeling of muscular tightness can be confused for muscle bulking, but it’s not. It’s simply temporary inflammation within the muscle that will ease off when the muscle has repaired itself.
Any kind of strength or resistance training is one of the best things you can do to enhance your health, wellbeing and longevity and the benefits come from working hard, so don’t be put off by weight training or resistance exercise as a couple of weight training sessions a week won’t turn you into a bodybuilder any more than a couple of runs a week will turn you into a marathon runner.
Steve Shreeve