At some point in their fitness journey, usually the start, almost every girl has either stood in front of the dumbbell rack in their gym confused or overwhelmed by too much gym-bro testosterone. You yourself have probably spent months thinking that while you’re repeatedly hitting each muscle group, you aren’t able to see the results. If this is you, this could be because may have misconceptions about the way you should approach working out.
I’ve been weightlifting for 3 years, and I was in a similar position a while back. The toxicity of the “beauty and wellness industries” and their lies on social media are inescapable and make gym culture different for women than it is for men and it doesn’t need to be this way. Hence, I’m writing this so you don’t make the same assumptions I did.
Let’s go over what some of these misconceptions could be and how they’re impacting you at the gym.
1. you’re chasing the burn
If you’re doing rep after rep after rep of a moderately heavy weight in a set until you feel your muscles burn, or waiting for yourself to sweat a lot, chances are you are not lifting heavy enough. And yes, I’m directing this at my ladies. Burning in your muscles doesn’t necessarily indicate an optimal workout, it just indicates your body’s threshold for these exercises, and how well the demands for oxygen by your muscles are being met (aerobic capacity). Essentially, once the muscles aren’t able to meet their energy requirements from their aerobic pathways, you start to feel the burn. This comes from the “no pain, no gain” mindset that exists in the female gym culture, especially on social media.
Although you are supposed to push yourself outside your comfort zone in fitness, pain is not an indicator of an optimal set. While feeling the burn is normal, beginners are just more likely to feel it faster since their muscles aren’t used to certain movements or loads, i.e. they fatigue quicker. The same principle applies to the soreness you feel days after working out (DOMS- delayed onset muscle soreness), your body just isn’t used to certain strenuous exercises and some level of DOMS is needed for effective muscle growth. However, once you have been lifting in the gym for a while, or your body gets used to those exercises, your muscles just get better at dealing with it and you don’t feel the burn or DOMS as much. If you’re pushing yourself to the point of pain, you might be overtraining and increasing your susceptibility to soft-tissue injuries.
2. Men and Women need to do different exercises at the gym
If you think that you as a woman are supposed to do more cardio, or more reps of a lighter load to achieve your fitness goals, you are wrong again. It doesn’t necessarily matter whether your goal is to get stronger and gain muscle, or even to lose weight: men and women don’t have differences in the exercises they are “supposed” to be doing. While cardio is a necessary tool to reach your goals by helping you burn calories and helping your heart health, it is NOT a replacement for weight training, no matter what your goal may be. It not only helps improve muscle mass, bone density, brain function, mood, but also your immunity, metabolism, and the way your body burns and stores calories.
At this point, you’re wondering if everything that you’re doing is wrong, then what should you be doing? The answer is progressive overload. The simplest way to look at this is that you need to try and hit EACH muscle group in a week till failure. Yes, that includes the chest as well. For example, if you work out 3 days a week, your split can look like: push/pull/legs. So say you’re hitting push (chest/shoulders/triceps) today, you need to plan your workout in a way that you choose 2-3 exercises for each of those muscle groups, and then do 2-3 sets of each exercise close to failure. Ideally, the weight you choose should be heavy enough that failure, i.e., you can’t move the weight with good form anymore, should happen around your 6th-12th repetition in a set. And no, you do not need more than 12 reps in any set. Like I said before, feeling the burn is not important for muscle growth. Once you can comfortably do about 8-10 repetitions with 1 weight, you should increase the weight the next time. Progressive overload is very important for anyone to make any progress in terms of fitness goals.
3. Lifting weights makes women look bulky
I’m sure some of you are queasily looking at the screen thinking and contemplating this advice, because you don’t want to look “too bulky” or “like a man” by lifting that heavy. However, to this I will say: do you know how hard it is for women to look bulky, even on purpose? Physiologically, women have a much lower concentration of testosterone in their bodies. This is about 15-20% lower than men, and this hormone is absolutely vital to building muscle. Due to this difference in testosterone, women cannot biologically build “bulky” muscles that efficiently. Women (like me) who are really into weightlifting and want to look muscular, will tell you how difficult it is. Nutrition also plays a huge role in fitness and bodybuilding and lifting as heavy as we are, we need to ensure that we’re meeting our protein requirements. We have to eat a LOT of food to be able to gain those muscles. This process takes years (about 3-5), and that’s only after you are consciously and purposefully working towards this goal. Furthermore, if you’ve seen extremely muscular women on bodybuilding platforms, they usually haven’t gotten those results naturally. Even after years of training, they need to take anabolic steroids for those gains. So don’t fear the weights, because even if you want that “toned” look, you need to lift very heavy (while progressively overloading) to build muscle. You must also ensure that you prioritise your nutrition.
Next time you go to the gym, keep these points in mind, and watch the results come to life. While you are giving these points a thought, pause and think about how the fitness and “wellness” industries, especially through social media, demonise any body type on women that isn’t skinny. Why is looking “bulky” such a fear in some of our heads. Body-shaming and misconceptions limit us from achieving strong and able bodies that can move in any way that we please.