RELATED ARTICLES
Weight loss - Keep it simple
Home or the gym: Which is the best place for weight loss?
How to Lose and Maintain a Healthy Weight
Strength training is nothing more than taking a form of resistance and applying it to a muscle as you take it through a range of motion. Yes, there is an exception to this rule of working out: Isometric Exercise. Go ahead, give it a click and then come back and get the whole story about what amount of resistance and total repetitions-to-fail have to do with all the other forms of strength training that does require movement through an entire range of motion.
Sometimes the resistance can be provided with "body weight." However, most of these exercises would be considered high reps: push-ups, sit-ups, squats and lunges just to name a few. Where I mention squats, I’m talking about those of us who do them without weights.
It’s simple:
Low weight, high repetitions =
Heavy weight, low repetitions=
Girls tend to go for the former workout and accompanying look, guys the latter. But when you see a girl cross over into what is considered the "manly techniques of manly body building", most people freak out. I don’t. I think it’s cool. These girls aren’t disfiguring themselves. And they are not doing irreparable damage to their bodies. They are participating in a sport. They are athletes like any other. Take a look at Irish Angie . . . isn’t she cool? What strength for such a tiny woman. Angie is only 148 lbs. Here she is squatting a whopping 330 lbs!
Here is a youtube video I found of a female body builder, Queenstarfish, counting down the final weeks and days to her competition. People see these woman in body building contests, and think that is what they look like all year round. Most people are clueless to the fact that this is a very peak point of conditioning. She talks about how she did three hours of cardio vascular, and then has to cut back from her usual two gallons of water per day, to one half gallon and eventually just befor
e the contest, 16 ounces.
e the contest, 16 ounces. Here is Angie "bulking up" –in this video she is sporting her sixteen-inch calves. Men’s biceps and calves should be about the same size for good proportion; however it works diffferently for the ladies. You can have a two inch diference and be fine. See how much less "cut" she is than the QueenSF? This is because Angie isn’t as close to the contest as Queen is. Because another thing that high repetition exercises including reps that go on and on in the form of cardio vascular exercise, does is this: It cuts up already well developed muscle mass. This is also called definition.
Bulk up = Heavy weight: As much as you can do 4-8 repetitions with before you exhaust the muscle’s strength.
Cut up = High repetitions: 50-100 plus push-ups, stair climber, and with free weight exercises -sets of 25-50.
That’s what it’s all about from the body builders’ standpoint. Now for those that want to workout, weight train and stay fit and keep lean by throwing the weights around a few times per week, don’t get discouraged if you start to "bulk up." this is a normal thing and can just as easily happen to women. Women are usually the ones to gripe about it! But they shouldn’t, for a few reasons:
- Muscles tend to stay swollen for a while after a work out; If you work out often, you will tend to look much more massive during those times.
- You need but you also retain quite a bit of water while working your muscles heavily. Some of that mass is just water.
- When you are noticing your self becoming too bulky, immediately switch to a high repetition workout. Simple fix!
- Take it as a cue to do more cardio
Now let’s look at it from the "looks" standpoint. If someone points and says "Wow -look at the gorgeous legs on that girl!" Generally they are talking about a muscular female leg. To have the traditional "nice legs" you need some muscle on that bone. Muscle is bulk. So if you are starting your weight training with slender legs, time to bulk up! Do calf raises while holding weight. A calf raise is simple: just stand on your tip toes, then slowly and in a controlled way lower yourself. With these I like to "explode" as in spring onto my tip toes, and then lower myself slowly. You should have to do some of these if you need to bulk up those legs. This will build the upper part, the thighs and butt.
Soon you’ll be sporting legs like Tina Turner! And where do those legs get their look? We’ll let Tina tell ya (in her own words) "Physical strength in a woman — that’s what I am." That’s right folks, five-foot-four-inch Tina Turner is strong and muscular, still, and at sixty five still looks great! Alright, I may as well just come out with it: Tina, how about a date? We could work out, go dancing, I could tell you all the things I used to think about you when I was seventeen . . . Auntie was hot! What do you say? It would be so cool!
It’s important to have muscle balance and proper proportion. So if you are going to have nice, muscular legs, then you should have the core and upper body to match. I notice a woman’s arms. When you can see a tricep, and see cuts in the forearm, maybe even a little vascularity in the forearm, I think that makes for nice arms on a woman. It follows that there should be some definition to the traps and deltoids. So it should be safe to say that a whole body work out–upper, lower and core–will serve to give a woman a balanced and muscular physic. For woman who walk a lot, and have legs that are very muscular and well defined, supplement some weight training for the upper body, or even do push ups. You have to keep muscle balance, and be the epitome of physical strength in a woman–like Tina . . . man, I hope she says yes!
