Many women want a lean, feminine body but not a masculine, muscular one.  Bodybuilders lift weights to get huge muscles, so it is normal to think that if a woman was to lift weights like a bodybuilder, she would get huge muscles just like a bodybuilder.

In home fitness programs like P90x, there is quite a bit of resistance training, done with either resistance bands or dumbbells.  It is no wonder why some women worry that if that if they were to do P90x or any kind of weightlifting program that their muscles would get huge, making them look masculine.

No worries!  This simply isn’t the case.  Yes, muscle will be built if you lift weights, but not to the extent that many women fear!

Why Women Have A Hard Time Building Huge Muscles

Men can build big muscles because they have testosterone.  Women have testosterone too, but much less of it then men do.

Because women don’t have the same amount of testosterone that men do, when they workout, their muscles tend to get lean instead of bulky.  Women will develop their muscles, but they will also retain their feminine physique.  Why is this?  Because women don’t have the testosterone to give them a manly physique.

Those massive bodybuilder women you see with huge muscles and a masculine physique are likely to be using performance enhancing drugs like steroids, which increase testosterone so more muscle mass can be packed on.  If you look at pictures you can definitely tell the difference between a juiced up female bodybuilder and a natural female bodybuilder.

Women Will Develop Their Muscles Lifting Weights, However…

Women can build muscle lifting weights, but did you know that muscle takes up less space than fat does?  This means that a woman can build muscle, lose fat, and end up looking thinner and firmer.

It takes a long time to put on a significant amount of muscle.  It won’t happen in a couple of days.  Many people need to weight lift for years to gain a lot of muscle mass, and then, in order to keep that muscle mass, they have to consistently eat enough protein and calories so that they don’t lose it.  And, if you want to build muscle mass, you have to eat more protein and calories.  In order to bulk up, you have to eat to bulk up.

How Do Reps Influence Muscle Growth – What Rep Range Should Women Stay In?

When doing resistance training with weights or resistance bands, different rep ranges will do different things for your muscles.  What rep range you go after will depend on your goals.  Whatever rep range you choose, you should be at or near muscle failure within your range.  This means that on your last rep you should feel like you could only do one more or that you can’t do anymore reps (muscle failure) within the range you are shooting for.

1-5 Strength Rep Range – This rep range will primarily build strength.  Size will also be built, but mainly this rep range is best for strength development.  You would need to lift very heavy weights to stay in this range, which means that if you don’t know what you are doing, the risk of injury can be greater, so you should definitely know what you are doing and have mastered good form before you lift in the 1-5 rep range.

6-12 Mass Rep Range – This rep range is best for building mass.  If you want bigger muscles, do 6-12 reps for each exercise in your program.

12-20+ Muscular Endurance Rep Range – When you start hitting the 12 and above rep range you start training more for muscular endurance.  The more you get over 12 reps, the less you are training for size and strength, and the more you are training for muscular endurance.  Muscular endurance means you can go longer doing the same thing.  Take push-ups for example.  If someone starts out only being able to do 1 push-up and then by doing push-ups every other day is able to do 100 push-ups months later, they may find that they added muscle mass up to a certain point, and then after that point they mainly got better at doing more push-ups.  This is because once they got past the 12 rep range they started training for muscular endurance.  Their body built muscle at first when they could only do 1-12 push-ups, but once their muscles became strong and big enough to support their body weight in a push-up, muscular endurance was the primary improvement made in the above 12 rep range.

Why Would A Woman Want To Lift In The Mass Rep Range?

Like it was said before, muscle takes up less space than fat.  Also, more muscle means your metabolism will be increased.  This is because muscle is a calorie consumer.  Adding more muscle will help you burn more calories and more fat.  And, since muscle takes up less space than fat, you can add muscle, lose fat, and still look thinner and firmer than before.

Why Would A Woman Want To Lift In  The Muscular Endurance Rep Range?

If you really don’t want to weight train in a way that will maximize muscle growth, then shoot for the 12 and above rep range, which will primarily build muscular endurance over strength and mass.

For Women Interested In P90x

 There are 3 different ways to do P90x (Classic, Lean, or Doubles).  Many women choose to do the lean program because it has more cardio and less weight training than the classic or doubles programs.  The P90x program also suggests that if you want to build mass, lift in the 8-10 rep range, and if you want to develop lean muscle, lift in the 12-15 rep range.  Either way it is hard for a woman to bulk up to the extent that a man can, but if you want to minimize muscle growth, follow the lean P90x schedule and lift in the 12-15 rep range.