Will Women Get Bulky If They Lift Weights?

Should women lift weights in the gym? This is one of the oldest questions in fitness and it's amazing how much confusion it still causes today. Today we will give you the lowdown on this often debated topic.

If you are trying to build a better body in your local gym it can be very distracting if you are always being told different things by different people. Lots of the fitness industry is based on pure opinion, which is why there are so many conflicting pieces of information. However, if you want to look at the rock hard scientific evidence on this particular subject you will find it a whole lot easier to understand.

This myth originates from the late 1970's, when the sport of bodybuilding suddenly burst into the mainstream and every guy wanted to build bigger arms as quickly as possible. Seeing huge guys such as Arnold Schwarzenegger lifting heavy dumbbells for set after set was a great inspiration for most guys to aspire to, but it had the opposite effect on ladies. The general assumption was that ladies should only do resistance training if they wanted to look like a bodybuilder. The 1980's VHS era made this situation worse, telling ladies that they needed to stick to long, drawn out cardio workouts and avoid resistance training completely.

Naturally, if building muscle was as easy as simply lifting up a dumbbell a few times per week then most guys would be completely ripped. However, common sense did not prevail at first and for many years there were countless ladies who avoided exercises which could have helped them to reach their goals faster.

There have been many scientific studies performed on male and female exercise enthusiasts over the last four decades which confirm that women should indeed be performing regular resistance training for a number of important reasons. They are listed below:

- In order to build a toned, lean physique you simply need some kind of resistance training.

- One of the major benefits of building more lean muscle is that your body will burn off unwanted fat more effectively. This will help you to reach your goals faster, as well as making you look even better once you reach them!

- Your overall fitness will greatly increase, as will your metabolism.

- Like HIIT, which is great for bringing your body fat percentage down, resistance training also has many fat loss benefits.

While those 4 points are all great, there is one major concern which almost every woman has. Is it going to make you look bulky? The answer is no. You cannot achieve a bodybuilder physique without living a bodybuilding lifestyle, which means learning what supplements to take and how to structure your diet to match your goal. Female bodybuilders find it even harder, because they need to supplement with testosterone boosting products as they don't have enough natural testosterone in their system to support as much muscle growth as men.

That's a lifestyle you certainly couldn't live by accident. Unless you are deliberately trying to look like a bodybuilder, you will not look like one.

So what is the final verdict? Should women lift weights or should they avoid them? Of course, every lady who wants to lose weight or get leaner should really be performing resistance training at least a couple of times each week. Alongside learning what supplements to take this is probably one of the biggest sticky subjects in gyms around the world. Now you know the facts.