Toning Up for Females

This article is actually going to heavily discuss female muscle development. The professional fitness industry actually seems to not be a very big fan of the phrase toning up. Because as professionals in the fitness industry, we know that “toning up” actually just means fat loss with muscle development. However, I almost can’t call an article “female muscle development” if I want a lot of females to click on it and read it because a majority of females, ladies, girls and women are still scared of the idea of creating muscle.

The purpose of this article is to change that.

Why are women scared to create muscle?

In my short and blunt opinion, women shouldn’t be scared to develop muscle and in fact many should aim to develop muscle, as I’ll expand on in due course.

I think women are scared to develop muscle for a few reasons, those being their misconception of how easy it will be, their misconception that muscle is masculine and down to the expectations placed on them by others (the media and insecure males being two examples)

The misconception of creating muscle

Many women are scared of muscle development because they are worried that they will touch a weight and accidentally look like Arnold Schwarzenegger did in the 1970s. Crucially, we’ll dispel this extreme by acknowledging that not only was Arnold gifted with fantastic muscle building genetics, trained and spent every waking hour on his physique and muscle building, but also openly took steroids in the 1970s and had to eat enough calories to reach his size. (In this context, enough is a lot)(I mean crazy lots).

Looking like Arnold is a vast exaggeration of reality. But women are scared of gaining more muscle than they want. Vitally, building muscle is very difficult, even when you train and eat for it. Building muscle requires a calorie intake and building large amounts of muscle to the point that you increase in size is literally impossible if you don’t eat suitable calories for it. As a woman or a man, even if you’re taking steroids, if you were to train like hell and still eat the same amount of calories without increasing them, you’re only going to lose weight or stay the same size. Yes, if you’re training hard you’ll get stronger and lose fat right? So you’d actually “tone up”. (However when people take steroids and train really hard, they will end up gaining weight, because they get hungry and eat more, which they’re usually aiming to do anyway)

Furthermore, your average male produces a lot more testosterone than your average female. Most women simply don’t have the hormonal profile to naturally build huge amounts of muscle. The muscle building process is very hard even for the women who want to do it. As a female wanting to tone up, trust me when I say that you won’t accidentally build more muscle than you want to uncontrollably.

Even for men. This process is difficult.. Next time you go into the gym just take a look around and see how many men you can see lifting all kinds of weights in a desperate attempt to gain muscle and acknowledge how skinny some of them might be, how insecure they might be that they’re finding it difficult. If men find muscle building difficult and they have all that testosterone to help them.. then take that as a sign that you won’t accidentally win a Mr Olympia title next time you visit the gym.

The misconception that muscle is masculine

Many people have a strange belief that muscle is a masculine thing. As I mentioned above, men typically do have more testosterone and more ability to build muscle than women do. The average male body will have more muscle mass on it than the average female body. That’s just statistics and biology. But we all have muscle, we need it to move and live. Who decided that muscle is a masculine thing?

I have a client who works in a pub and has men in their 60s and 70s chatting to her about the gym while she’s serving and saying that she wants to be careful that she doesn’t get too muscly. Luckily she’s a legend, wants to be more muscular and doesn’t care what an old man in the pub has to say about the matter.

I’ve never seen a woman that’s too muscular. That’s because muscle and strength is for both men and women too. As a bit of a male feminist myself, especially when it comes to fitness, I believe that females deserve and should want to feel empowered, safe, strong, physically able and confident.

What says empowered, safe, able to protect, strong, physically able and confident better than a good posture, a bit of definition in the arms and legs, being able to lift more than you weigh and anything else that comes with training to develop some muscle.

Are the qualities listed above things that apply to males only and not women? Should they be? If you think not, then let’s stop thinking that muscle and strength are only male qualities.

The idea is outdated and simply that of old men in pubs and probably insecure men too. Which brings me onto my next point…

Expectations

The expectations placed upon women come from a range of different places. Some examples being the media, males and even sometimes other women. Social media is still rife with models with eating disorders or who have naturally slim bodies and these get used by brands to sell products and market sales. It also seems that any time a female with a more realistic and strong body gets on love island and gains a following she also quickly becomes less realistic and loses a lot of weight once leaving the show for example. I suspect this is probably because she is more likely to get sponsorship from brands if she is skinny, thus developing an eating disorder or losing weight via any other not particularly healthy means. Which is a very big shame and fundamental flaw within our society.

It’s important to me to mention that it is okay for a woman to be skinny, and not all slimmer women have eating disorders or even want to be slim. Some women are slim and insecure about it. Some women are slim and that’s how they’re happy. That’s okay and women aren’t villains for being slim. But the example i’ve discussed above is the unfortunate reality for a lot of the slim women in the public eye. Do you really think some of these women are happy when they are required to eat less, not enjoy their food, have an eating disorder, have very little energy because it is required and expected of them in order to make their income through social media and brand deals? I don’t think so. Many of them don’t have it as easy as you think and definitely aren’t happy.

What I also see and hear about weekly that grinds my gears is male expectations of women’s bodies. I’d like to start by saying that it’s definitely not all men/males that do this. But I get women talking to me about exes or partners that have told them not to do too much lifting in case they get too big and muscular. I’ve even had guys commenting on posts of my female clients lifting and making the same comments or responses to posts i’ve written on this topic saying things like “well what if I prefer my women petite”. “I don’t find strong women attractive”. Well that’s all good and well mate but at the end of the day it’s not your decision what your girlfriend, or any woman in the world decides they want their body to look like and be able to do. So shut up and get lost pal.

The crucial fact of the matter is that most males don’t want their partner to be stronger than them or look more athletic then them because it might make them feel emasculated. Maybe that’s a natural thing. But when you’re a weak, skinny or unathletic male then it doesn’t take much for a female to be stronger or more athletic than you. That’s why i’ve noticed that most males who make these comments are typically weak, skinny and insecure. Even if they’re not weak and skinny, they are insecure. Most males who are strong and athletic themselves or at least confident in themselves really aren’t bothered if women are or want to be strong, lean or lift weights. In fact, guys that are really into their fitness will find it hella attractive when females are athletic, strong and developing muscle, because they are strong and athletic too.

Why build muscle as a woman?

So that’s some of the reasons why women are scared to lift weights or develop muscle and some myths dispelled. So why should women seek to build muscle?

As I mentioned right at the beginning of the article, if you’re a female wanting to “tone up” then muscle development is a part of that process. If your goal is to simply “lose weight” this doesn’t specify which weight you want to lose. Could you just eat less, burn more calories, lose weight in the form of both fat and muscle and be a smaller person who still isn’t very “toned”…? Yes! it happens… So if you want to tone up then muscle development should be in your interest.

It’s not about losing weight. Losing weight never actually made anyone’s life better. The benefits of the things they did in order to lose that weight might have made their life better. The training, the healthier eating and the confidence they gained through better fitting clothes and new shapes on their body. So the goal when toning up shouldn’t just be about losing weight. Let’s say you eat the right amount of calories to stay the same weight. You train hard and develop muscle. Remember that you’re eating to stay the same weight and if you’re training to build muscle then your body has to get rid of something in order to stay the same weight. That something is fat. Just like that, you’re getting more toned.

As i’ve talked about throughout this article, some of the process of developing muscle is to do with training. Resistance training specifically and lifting weights. Going through this process will provide you with a whole host of other benefits including better posture and a longer life. But also crucially, more confidence and empowerment. It’s not just muscle that makes you feel strong and empowered, it’s strength, weight lifting, exercise and the activities that go with this process that will make you feel good.

Building muscle also gives your body shape. Do you just want to be smaller or do you want to be toned? Do you want shapely legs, arms that wobble less, a perky bum? Or do you just want flat surfaces? Guess what, you want to build muscle.

How to develop muscle as a female:

I wanted the purpose of this article to be about dispelling a few myths around the idea of building muscle, female insecurities around the topic and some of the societal concepts. It’s not meant to be a guide on how to build muscle. But i’m not going to just get you all excited and leave you hanging. Let’s finish this all off with a few starting tips and points on how to get going.

• Resistance Training - To develop muscle you need to use the muscle. Running on the treadmill, spinning, abs classes and your daily step count aren’t what you need to be focusing on. Your muscle needs tension and load. It needs to resist tension and load while it stretches and then contracts to move said load. Your body is a load, so yes, bodyweight squats, lunges and push ups count. But for the best progression you’re going to want more. Your gym has more load than you’ll ever need. Even if you don’t have a scooby how to lift, your gym is likely to be full of machines that only move through one plane of motion so you can’t go wrong, you can always change the level of resistance and you can work the whole body. Getting started with resistance training is easier than you think. Don’t be scared. This is your first step towards becoming that confident person you want to be. So be confident. If you don’t know to to use a machine, your gym has staff that will show you. If you want to get onto the good stuff like squats and deadlifts, then i’ll show you. You’re on my website and my email address is just a click away.

• Progressive Overload - Your body doesn’t just need to hold, resist and move load. It also needs to improve. It’s an adaptation machine which means it gets better and improves when it feels that it needs to be better to fit your lifestyle and the requirements you place upon it. It adapts to survive. If it is capable and comfortable then it knows it can survive. In order to adapt and progress then you need to show your body that it needs to be more capable. This means that the load you place upon it needs to constantly increase if you want it to develop. This means that to develop muscle then you need to give it more resistance, more time holding that load, more reps, more sets and more weight (more overall load).

• Calories - Some women need to eat less calories to tone up, some women need to eat more calories to tone up, some women need to eat the same amount of calories to tone up. It all depends on your body and what it can do. One thing is for certain, in order to tone up, your body needs enough calories. Don’t starve yourself. It’s silly.

• Protein - Protein might be as important as calories. If you’re toning up by gaining weight, protein helps you build that muscle, if you’re toning up by losing weight, protein helps you keep that muscle while maybe developing more. Muscles need protein. Make sure you’re getting between 1.5 and 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of your bodyweight each day. For example, if you’re a 75kg woman, (75 x 1.5 = 112.5) you need to be aiming for at least 112.5 grams each day.

• Sleep - Recovery and muscle development as well as hormone regulation happens during sleep. Sleep is good for you. If you have bad sleep, you can expect stress, cravings, sub optimal conditions in the body for toning and muscle development. I don’t like the 8 our rule because if you sleep for 8 hours you’ll wake up from a deep sleep, mid cycle and be tired. Look at getting your hours as a multiple of 90 minutes. 7 hours 30 is great. 6 hours is enough but lower than 6 is getting a bit risky. 9 hours per night is absolutely amazing.

Ladies and gents, females and males, that is why toning up is about developing muscle and why females and males should not only be unafraid of developing muscle but should actually seek to do so if they’re looking to tone up. I’ve dispelled a few myths, talked about some serious issues and given you some crucial pointers on how to get started.

I hope you enjoyed the read and are going to implement some of this into your life and your training.

I hope I may have either changed or solidified the way you think.

If you would like any help with achieving anything discussed in this article, email me at coaching@brookadnitt.com

Happy Training.