“I don’t want to get too bulky.”

That’s what I hear from a lot of women when they are about to start strength training. Much of the time, I calm them down, and tell them not to worry about it. A routine that makes a man bulky makes a woman toned. But, about 20-30% of the time, we do have female clients who legitimately bulk up too easily. Underweight guys, with super-fast metabolisms wish it was that easy.

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Original source: here.

Old Myth: Women Can’t Bulk

In the fitness industry, it’s always been a mantra: “women can’t bulk like men. You need testosterone to get bulky, and women don’t have nearly as much testosterone as men. So fogedaboudit” (that’s “forget about it”, pronounced with an Italian accent).

Well, from practical experience, I can tell you that it’s true most of the time. But there’s a fairly large minority of women who really will bulk up too easily. I’m a physiology geek, so I like to know not just an effect, but the actual reason for that effect. Indulge me while I tell you my theory on why some women actually bulk up too easily.

Excess body fat is feminizing to men (body fat has an enzyme called “aromatase”, which converts testosterone to estrogen), but masculinizing to women. How many women have either PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), or subclinical PCOS? In the overweight population, it’s pretty high. This is characterized by having testosterone levels that are too high in a female. So this is more pathophysiology than regular physiology.

These women will legitimately build muscle too easily.

How Do You Know If You Bulk Up Too Easily?

If you’ve ever done strength training in your life, you already know it. Your muscles are much more responsive to strength training compared to your female friends. You both may follow the same routine, but she gets toned, and you get bulky.

If you’ve never done strength training before, here are a few ways to know:

Are you over 20-30 pounds overweight?
Do you have a large frame (I mean really a large frame… not the “I’m big boned” excuse a lot of people use to justify excess weight)?
How do your female family members respond to strength training?
In high school or university or at any time did you gravitate towards more strength/power/speed sports, like track and field, judo, etc. (as opposed to endurance sports, like running long distances, or mixed sports, like soccer, basketball, etc.)?

If you answered yes to any of the above, then there’s a decent chance that you’re a female who can bulk too easily.

If you’re naturally petite, then it’s very unlikely that you bulk too easily.

What to Do

If you’re indeed in the 20-30% of females who can bulk too easily, here’s what we do with our clients who are in that boat:

Only do one set of an exercise. With most of our clients, we’ll do 3-7 sets of an exercise. With our females who bulk up very easily, one set is it.
Follow your strength training with 20-30 minutes of steady cardio (not intervals). Nothing burns muscle like cardio. That’s why we tell many of our clients who are working on muscle gain to avoid cardio like the plague. But if the direct goal is to burn muscle, use that tool in your toolbox.
Decrease your protein consumption. For most of our clients, we recommend meat, fish or seafood at all 3 meals per day. For our easy-gaining female clients, we recommend animal protein only once a day.

If you need help with your own exercise routine, and you’re just confused about what to do, you can apply for a FREE Dream Body MAP Session by clicking here.