[musclesntx]

Many of you may remember my friend "Sunshine", and I'm sure the ones that do can vouch that she definitely knows her stuff.

Enjoy, ladies!

One of the greatest fears most females have when it comes to weightlifting is that they don't want to "bulk up;" they just want to tone their muscles and get in shape. For the most part, all of us girls want to be fit and slim with a nice flat stomach and defined muscles ... not big, just defined. So, many females format their weightlifting routine according to the popular "fad" -- lighter weights for higher reps. After all, that will keep us from becoming huge and bulky, right? Because, if we lift with heavy weights for lower reps -- at any point -- don't we risk bulking up and getting huge muscles that will make us look manly?! WRONG! That is a totally incorrect assumption; a myth, in fact.

I am amazed at how many women fear weightlifting. When I go into the gym, I rarely see women working out in the weight rooms. Most of the time, they are on the treadmills, or elliptical machines, or possibly working out on some ab machine and maybe an occasional arm machine. It has been engrained in us that for us to get that perfect and toned image, we need to stick with cardio and do some "light lifting" (3 or 5 lb. dumbbells), never becoming overly involved with weightlifting (unless, of course, you are planning to enter some type of competition). We've been trained to think that should we ever start actively lifting (with substantial weights), we will one day become massive and have monstrous muscles like a guy ... or like those unnatural looking female body builders.

But ladies, no worries! Whether you do light weight with high or low reps or heavy weights at high or low reps, it makes no difference -- you will NEVER get as bulky as a guy or as scary looking as the female bodybuilder!! Why is that? TESTOSTERONE! It's what allows guys to bulk and prevents us from it. We all know that men have LOTS of testosterone. Because of that, they can get huge and gain those colossal muscles that we all love so dearly! But we have nowhere NEAR the amount of testosterone that males have. Therefore, there is no natural way that we can achieve the same muscle gain that they can. We can do the same workouts that guys do -- using heavy weights with low reps, we can do exercises like deadlifts and the military press and squats (no, it doesn't cause you to have a bigger but -- another myth!) and whatever we want to do -- with no worries about becoming the size of a man! You could do this every day if you chose and you STILL wouldn't gain the same muscle-mass that guys do -- we simply don't have enough testosterone for it to happen, period! Can we gain muscle? Absolutely. But certainly not to the extent that a male can. So this fear that females have is definitely unfounded!

But hold on ... I know that we've all seen those ladies who are ripped to the bone -- they do high weight at low reps. Won't that mean that we'll look like them if we do it? There is no way on God's green earth that we could NATURALLY look like that. Now, if you want to take some steroids or some other banned product that will increase your testosterone, then sure, you can look like them! Whether they admit to it or not, the female bodybuilders who are so freakish looking -- who are big and bulky -- have, at some point, used steroids or other testosterone enhancing drugs that have allowed them to obtain such grotesque muscles.

So unless you're planning on shooting up or taking some kind of drug to increase your testosterone levels, you have absolutely nothing to be concerned about. You can work out however you want, with as much weight as you want, as often as you want (and is healthy!). There is no longer a need to fear or adhere to the silly myth that weightlifting will hurt our chances of a "perfect image." Go lift to your heart's content!