Why women need to understand that muscle is good (and no, we won’t look like men)

After my recent post on lifting and its numerous health benefits, I want to address something that still comes up with my female clients all the time. They come to me wanting to “tone their body” or “get a little bit stronger” but as soon as they’ve said it they’re quick to add that “they don’t want to bulk up.”

Let me be clear here ladies: Nature didn’t design us to be big. For women to bulk up, let alone look like Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, we need to
💪 Work extremely hard, consistently
💪 Eat a relatively clean diet with enough calories to support muscle growth 💪 Increase our protein intake
💪 Sleep enough (for most that’s at least 7hrs a night)
💪 Live a relatively stress-free life in general

I’d be so lucky to look like Linda after swinging around measly 5-pound dumbbells once or twice a week. In short, big, bulky muscles take a lot of work consistently over many months and years.

It’s (all) about testosterone

Testosterone and human growth hormone are the two major hormones involved in building lean muscle. Women produce both of them, but we have about a 15–20% lower concentration of testosterone in our bodies than men. Mostly because of that, men average 61% more muscle mass than women, and most of the difference is found in the upper body. Testosterone plays a key part in ramping up muscle protein synthesis and men seem to be in more favorable protein balance in general. Unfortunately, many women are still held back by the expectations of our culture that look down upon a woman who eats like a man.

Also, the difference in muscle fibers, both number, and size, contribute to how muscular men look compared to women. Luckily, estrogen, which women have more than men, has anabolic properties too and plays an important role in recovery. Lastly, genetics play a part in how easy or hard it is for a person to build muscle.

The great news here is that women respond to strength training as well as men, and we can build strength at relatively the same pace when we train. It’s just that we start with less muscle mass and muscle fibers, and while strength training can increase the size of your muscle fibers, it won’t grow more of them so we can’t bulk up like men.

Sleep, stress, and health

So what do sleep and stress got to do with muscle mass? We all know that sleep is where we recover from the day's work and play. But sleep is also super important for muscle growth because most of the growth hormone is released during sleep. And interestingly, women secrete more growth hormone than men! Lack of sleep and stress decreases the levels of growth hormone. In addition, stress has a catabolic reaction to muscle growth by decreasing muscle protein synthesis. To add insult to injury, sleep deprivation and stress increase the levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which impacts our body composition and weight by making us more insulin resistant and better at storing fat. So, If you want to train and look like a champ you need to sleep and chill like one too.

Okay, but back to our initial talking point why women shouldn’t forgo strength training in the name of looking feminine. I’ll repeat it again: You won’t look like a man or even a woman in bodybuilding magazines unless you do a lot of things right. Instead, if you strength train twice a week (yes using heavy weights too), eat a healthy diet (enough calories and protein), and sleep at least 7 hrs/night, you will build bones and muscles, and have a healthy metabolism which gives you a great start to live and age healthy, and maybe even look toned if you do things right consistently. On the other hand, if you mostly shun resistance training you will put yourself behind the eight ball when it comes to health and longevity. Skinny but weak won’t work in your favor when you get older. I don’t know why anyone would want to give themselves a worse chance at living healthy and aging well, do you? I know we all have our own opinion on what feminine looks like but I think muscle looks fabulous on a woman, and I know a lot of men who think so too.