"I don't want to get bulky, I can't lift/lift heavy/do something besides run...oh and my knees hurt"

How many times have you heard this? I know I hear it every day. I don't want to lift weights because then I'll : get big / gain a ton of weight / become ugly / lose my boobs / look like a pro bodybuilder.


  Here is what women think lifting weights or doing anything but cardio will make them appear

Higher testosterone than the Baltimore Ravens. Check.

But in actuality a woman putting in work in the gym with heavy weights, a good diet, and drive to succeed will end up looking more like this... Now continue reading

No anabolic steroids here

Yes, mainly this applies to women as they are both more worried about it because of stereotypes and myths as well as being more emotional in that they are willing to say it out loud. That is because most men if they are even willing to be trained in fitness by another man, will not *completely* and in detail voice their goals in terms of appearance. As that would not be "manly" or somehow that saying you want to look like "insert movie star" will lower your testosterone - by the way this line of thinking will in fact get you nowhere and worrying so much about what others will think of what you SAY will definitely make sure you never actually DO anything.

But that is a topic for another post, back to the women who wholeheartedly believe that lifting weights, especially heavy ones will make them rival top female and maybe even male bodybuilders in the world inside of 6 months. Yes, God forbid that many like myself who are male- have taken years to add 35+lbs to their body weight at a prime time in their life for testosterone levels and are training with intensity and shoveling food by the pound year round.... Yes a woman who has never consistently trained except for running a mile or two every couple days for 6 weeks at a time on and off.....is suddenly going to start benching and squatting while eating her daily tradition of probably 2 meals most likely totaling less than 100 for any macro nutrient (protein/carb/fat), yes she is going to look like a 200lb+ behemoth on a diet of anabolics and meat....Oh yeah inside the 6 months or so she'd be holding on to a trainer with money/time/life permitting...

Yeah right it just doesn't work that way. One of my favorite examples to illustrate this point is the shadow/silhouette example, I have heard it many times in many different ways but the message is the same. If we took an anorexic male and female and merely saw their silhouettes against a wall, could you tell who was who? I bet not. How about an extremely overweight male and female? Who is who?

Without muscle both males and females look like this at either end of the spectrum

 Now take a normal range of body fat and athletic physiques of a male and female, you can tell who is who no problem and they both probably look good, the differentiating characteristic is muscle mass. If we put 50lbs of muscle on Jessica Biel she would not doubt look like a bodybuilder but since women are hormonally incapable of that without steroids it doesn't matter, so as far as we are concerned muscle actually enhances the curves of the female body and will make you look more feminine.

A lot of  muscle is more masculine, thanks to testosterone

Muscle appearing feminine - looks better than the above images huh, without extreme levels of testosterone

Notice they both retain the hourglass shape, it's the way that the human body is built that women come with wider hips and breasts allowing the hourglass shape with muscle to appear more feminine and the high testosterone in men allowing us to carry more muscle in addition to smaller hips so the legs may complete the hourglass as opposed to the hips on a female.



 So if we take our silhouette which maybe has some extra fat that we are looking to lose and simply just use cardio like aerobics or jogging or my favorite fat burner - walking to lose weight we will succeed, but then what is left? Hell if we gave ourselves a full body liposuction, what would be left? just skin, bone, and muscle. Except just jogging we didn't build any muscle so now we look like a popular hollywood star with a drug addiction because we lost all our fat and there's nothing but loose skin now which just leads us back to where we started - upset with something about our body.

 Get out there and get in the gym lifting weights, there is tons of information out there on how to do it properly so I would suggest talking to someone or learning as much as you can to become decently informed on the subject (being my blog and all I would highly suggest talking to me as I deal with people new to working out all the time)

Here's Trace Ryan (a female powerlifter) deadlifting 325lbs

Here she is normally

One of the strongest women around, clearly weights made her nasty ( I think not )

Or how about some other notable women who lift weights heavy and regularly

Clearly she needs to stop lifting

I chose Hilary Swank because she is often referred to as "manly" by females but if the first thing that comes to mind when anyone sees this picture is "manly" then there are larger issues than fitness and I encourage you to email me at jpduprefit@gmail.com

Does it seem as ridiculous as it sounds? Well it is. Given the fact that hormones in men and women are active in very different ways, and considering testosterone is the driving force of packing on muscle and many women do not artificially add test to their bodies. Plus lets get it straight that you girls simply don't come with a lot of it, let alone enough to become huge in any way. So understand that lifting weights to become stronger, will make you better at everything you do physically in life as well as allowing the confidence and the feeling of achieving success in weight room spill over into other aspects of your life. That's not even including that you will look and feel better in your daily life and probably live longer as well.

 Not to mention that a set of heavy squats will burn more calories than an hour of running. I'm not going to jump into the scientific support realm because that's not what this blog is about and most of the readers probably wouldn't read a study if I started quoting one anyway, let alone click my source at the bottom. Don't take that as a negative either, I love the science of training and eating and read studies all the time. I encourage anyone interested to read studies as well, as you'll come to realize some of them actually provide evidence AGAINST their intended purpose usually by stacking the deck accidentally in their favor. Lets make it a little simpler to understand -

If I said have you heard of squatting being bad for your knees? Many of you would have thoughts pop in your head yeah I heard that from *insert someone you know who knows about training* or maybe you heard of studies done in school.... If I told you that a study saying squats were bad for the knees was done with the following how would you feel

1.        The person testing the hypothesis was quite educated in kinesiology, and yet chose to use an untrained individual as a test subject aka someone who doesn't work out or may not even know how. Especially something like squatting where bad technique will hurt you.
2.       The squats were done on a smith machine or some machine with the bar being on a track, meaning the bar moves on a set path, some of the machines having a slight incline meaning not a straight line. That would be like strapping your butt to a bicycle seat, yeah most of the time you might be sitting but sometimes you move a little to readjust. Or maybe you're tall and are too close to the handlebars/maybe you're short and lean forward more to reach or maybe you are out of shape and have to stand up to pedal...you can't do any of that if your stuck to the seat.  Everyone is different and someone with longer femurs will be more upright in a smith machine squat and may get more tension in their knees - see where I'm going? a bar on a track is less favorable because it adds restrictions that someone new to lifting will not understand or be aware of
3.        They only squat to "parallel" which means the hip does not go lower than the knees in the bottom position. This is a death sentence because breaking that parallel plane is what brings the hamstrings and glutes into play making the load disperse among other muscles notably your back half. With stopping at parallel all of the weight is supported completely by your quads(front half of your legs), lower back, and what do ya know the knees! Does it make sense now? I bet everyone reading this knows someone who hurt their knees/lower back squatting. Now you know that it was too much weight and too little technique that broke them, rarely is it by chance.
4. Combining all of the above we have the recipe for a study to prove something that is not the truth *when done properly*

•  Someone who doesn't know how to squat because they haven't the training or experience doing the movement
• Using a machine to gauge effectiveness of a movement that is not by default ever done in a machine
• Doing the movement in a way that will most likely result in a quadricep/lower back/ or knee injury that is only compounded by the nature of the machine

(this is merely an example, not all studies contain all of the above mistakes, there may be no mistakes and it's a great study proving a point we should all learn or there may be combinations of the above variables in similar contexts. Read as much as possible for yourself.)

What have we learned today? We now know that the pursuit of strength for women especially in the weight room can do nothing but benefit you.

*I used anorexic in an analogy, I understand that it is a serious disease and should not be taken lightly
**I used the smith machine as a bad guy in the squat study, it is not a bad machine and has many great uses, I love it as another tool in the toolbox but in that specific context it's the devil
***The squat study example is not me declaring all studies bad, but as with any other subject you cannot get all the information from just reading an abstract and certain testing conditions or variables may often surprise you with being out of place in particular studies especially used in a manner like the above -  much like in politics or substituting ingredients to make a food dish, it may be the same dish but putting anchovies in a brownie mix does not prove that brownies taste bad....Be aware of the details that could change something but shouldn't

Oh yeah and my training, I have reached the peak of my mass gain for now. Its been an epic journey from the 160s to 195 now, time to add some cardio so I don't tire at the top of the stairs anymore. I will be undertaking a brutal combination of strength work and conditioning as well as daily calisthenics to increase athleticism for the next 12+ weeks.

5/25
Incline bench press - 185lb x 8 , 165lb x 8
1-arm db bench - 3 x 6 @ 70lb
Bodyweight Dips - 50 total - 20 , 20 , 10
Jump rope - 3 x 3min rounds
Chins - 2L to 3

5/26
Leg curls /w stability ball - 40 total - 20 , 20
Squat - 225lb x 5 , 5 , 8
Forward sled drags - 6 trips of 100ft - 2plates , 2plates+25 , 3Plates, 3Plates+25, 3Plates, 2plates
Pushups - sets of 10 throughout the day

5/27
One mile run - 9 minutes

5/28
Press - 125lb x 5 , 5 , 6 +2 more push pressed
DB Jerks - 3 x 5 @ 60lbs
KB Swings - 125 swings /w 35lbs
Neck harness - 4 x 25 @ 20lb
Dive bomber pushups - sets of 5 throughout the day

Exhausting, til next time