Top 10 Reasons Heavy Weights Don't Bulk Up the Female Athlete As seen on Elitefts.com Tim Kontos
 Dave Adamson and I were driving to the IPA Nationals this past weekend talking training (yeah we're pretty passionate about what we do) when the subject of training women with heavy weights came up. I am in my ninth year at VCU as the head strength and conditioning coach and David has been in strength and conditioning for 3 years and this is a subject we deal with every year regardless of how much training information is available to the public. The best way to get information is to go to the source. So, we asked Sarah Walls. Sarah is another strength and conditioning coach at VCU, a writer for Muscle and Fitness Hers, a former figure competitor, and a Women's Tri-Fitness competitor…..not to mention she is a strong female athlete that is not bulked up. Therefore, she has a great perspective on the subject. So we, being a good team, put our heads together to find a way to combat this never-ending dilemma. Our way of combating this is through education. And, only one answer to a question is never enough. If you know your job well, then you know that there is more than one way to skin a cat. So we came up with following list: 1. Women do not have nearly as much testosterone as men. In fact, according to Bill Kreamer, in Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning, women have about 15 to 20 times less testosterone than men. Testosterone is the reason men are men and women are women. After men hit puberty they grow facial hair, their voice deepens, and they develop muscle mass. Because men have more testosterone they are much more equipped to gain muscle. Because women do not have very much testosterone in their bodies they will never be able to get as big as men. 2. The perception that women will bulk up when they begin a strength training program comes from the chemically altered women on the front of bodybuilding magazines. These "grocery stand models" are most likely pumped full of some extra juice. This is why they look like men. If you take the missing link that separates men from women and add it back in, what do you have? A man! 3. For women, toning is what happens when the muscle is developed through training. This is essentially bodybuilding without testosterone. Since the testosterone is not present in sufficient amounts, the muscle will develop, but will not gain a large amount of mass. The "toned" appearance comes from removing the fat that is covering a well-developed muscle. 4. Muscle bulk comes from a high volume of work. The repetition range that most women would prefer to do (8-20) promotes hypertrophy (muscle growth). For example, a bodybuilding program will have 3 exercises per body part -- for the chest they will do flat bench for 3 sets of 12, incline for 3 sets of 12, and decline bench for 3 sets of 12. This adds up to 108 total repetitions. A program geared towards strength will have one exercise for the chest, flat bench for 6 sets of 3 with progressively heavier weight. This is 18 total repetitions. A high volume (108 reps) causes considerable muscle damage, which in turn, results in hypertrophy. The considerably lower volume (18 reps) will build more strength and cause minimal bulking. 5. Heavy weights will promote strength not size. This has been proven time and time again. When lifting weights over 85%, the primary stress imposed upon the body is placed on the nervous system, not on the muscles. Therefore, strength will improve by a neurological effect while not increasing the size of the muscles. And, according to Zatsiorsky and Kreamer, in Science and Practice of Strength Training, women need to train with heavy weights not only to strengthen the muscles, but also to cause positive adaptations in the bones and connective tissues. 6. Bulking up is not an overnight process. Many women think they will start lifting weights and wake up one morning and say "Holy Sh__! I'm huge!" This doesn't happen. The men that you see who have more muscle than the average person, have worked hard for a long time (years) to get that way. If you bulk up overnight contact us because we want to do what you are doing. 7. What the personal trainer is prescribing is not working.Many female athletes come into a new program and say they want to do bodyweight step-ups, bodyweight lunges, and leg extensions because it is what their personal trainer back home had them do. However, many of these girls need to look in a mirror and have a reality check, because their trainer's so-called magical toning exercises are not working. Trainers will hand out easy workouts and tell people they work because they know that if they make the program too hard the client will complain. And, if the client is complaining there is a good chance the trainer might lose that client (a client to a trainer is a.k.a. money). 8. Bulking up is calorie dependant. This means if you eat more than you are burning you will gain weight. If you eat less than you are burning you will lose weight. Unfortunately, most female athletes perceive any weight gain as "bulking up," and do not give attention to the fact that they are simply getting fatter. As Todd Hamer, a strength and conditioning coach at George Mason said: "squats don't bulk you up it's the 10 beers a night that bulk you up." This cannot be emphasized enough. If you are a female athlete and training with heavy weights (or not) you need to watch what you eat. Let's be real, the main concern that female athletes have when coming to their coach about gaining weight is not their performance, but aesthetics. If you choose to ignore this fact, as a coach, you will lose your athletes! 9. The freshman 15 is not caused by strength training. It is physiologically impossible to gain 15 lbs of muscle in only a few weeks unless you are on performance enhancing drugs. Yes the freshman 15 can come on in only a few weeks. This becomes more complex when an athlete comes to a new school, starts a new training program, and also has a considerable change in their diet (i.e. only eating one or two times per day in addition to adding 6-8 beers per evening for 2-4 evenings per week). They gain fat weight, get slower and then blame the strength program. Of course, strength training being the underlying cause is the only reasonable answer for weight gain. The fact that two meals per day has slowed the athlete's metabolism down to almost zero and then the multiple beers added on top of that couldn't have anything to do with weight gain…..it must be the lifting. 10. Most of the so-called experts are only experts on how to sound like they know what they are talking about. The people who "educate" female athletes on training and nutrition have no idea of what they are talking about. Let's face it, how many people do you know that claim to "know a thing or two about lifting and nutrition?" Now how many people do you know that actually know what they are talking about, have lived the life, dieted down to make a weight class requirement, or got on stage at single digit body fat? Invariably these so-called experts are also the people that blame their gut on poor genetics. These so-called experts are the reason you see so many women doing sets of 10 with a weight they could do 20 or 30 times. They are being told by the experts that this is what it takes to "tone" the muscles. Instead, they are only wasting their time doing an exercise with a weight that is making no contribution to the fitness levels or the development of the muscle. In case you haven't figured it out by this point in the article, what is currently being done in fitness clubs to help female athletes tone their bodies is not working. It is not helping these women get toned, and it is definitely not helping improve athletic performance. Maybe it's time for a change. Contrary to the non-effective light weights currently being used, heavy weights offer many benefits for women, including: improved body composition, stronger muscles, decreased injury rate, and stronger bones (which helps prevent osteoporosis). Let's try lifting some heavy weights and controlling our diet and watch this logical, science-based solution make the difference we've been looking for. Tim Kontos is the Assistant Athletic Director for Sports Performance For Virginia Commonwealth University. He is also a competitive Powerlifter with persona bests of 525 squat, 380 bench and 450 deadlift. He can be reached though his site: www.kontosstrength.com David Adamson is an Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach University Texa El Paso He is also a competitive powerlifter with personal bests of 600 squat, 370 Bench Press and 540 Deadlift. Sarah Walls is an Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach George Mason University. She is also a graduate of Virginia Tech and is a contributing writer for Muscle and Fitness Hers. | 
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