"But I don't want to get bulky!"

Iris Kyle: 2011 Arnold Classic Champion

Disclaimer:  Crossfit is a complete body workout that focuses on all 10 Components of Fitness.  Lifting heavy things is part of that.  I am only talking about weight lifting in this blog post.

"But I don't want to get bulky!"  Let's be honest; if you're a woman, either you've said it yourself or heard others say it.  If you are a Crossfitter it's only a matter of time before you hear someone say it to you.  I know I get really sick of hearing it.  It's based on myths about beauty, strength, fitness, and even how the human body works.

One source of these myths is that women tend to think of body builders when they think about "lifting weights".  Women who whine, "I don't want to get bulky", simply don't understand what female body builders have to do to look the way they do.  First, the sport of body building is not about fitness and function; it's all about appearance.  Second, if you read the athlete profiles in Muscle and Fitness Hers, you'll see that lady body builders eat far too few calories for the amount of work they do (they get most their calories from protein shakes) and spend up to 12 hours a day at the gym.  Many of them take steroids and/or testosterone to gain this kind of muscle.  In the weeks before a competition, body builders starve and dehydrate themselves to make their skin thinner, which shows their muscle striations better.  So unless a woman plans to do these things it's unreasonable to fear that they will look like Iris Kyle, the 2011 winner of the Arnold Classic.


All four of the following pictures are of elite Crossfitters.  They mainly eat a Paleo Diet and do Crossfit.  They exercise for function and fitness, not appearance.  Please note that in these pictures they are in the middle of intense physical activity (all but one during competition) so their muscles are working hard.  I specifically selected these photos because their body types are all different.

Annie Sakamoto: Crossfit legend, 9th place 2011 Crossfit
Games

35-year-old mom of two, Annie Sakamoto, is petite at 5'0" and 115lbs, but has pretty big muscles for her size.  I would say she has more than average muscle growth than even elite Crossfitters.  She also has a very low body fat percentage (about 13%, according to Competitor Magazine), compared to the average 20% that is considered healthy for a woman.

Jenny LaBaw (6th place 2011 Crossfit Games) and Annie
Thorisdottir (1st place 2011 Crossfit Games, Fittest Woman
on Earth 2011)

22-year-old former gymnast, Annie Thorisdottir, 2011 Crossfit Games champion, is taller (5'7'') with very long muscles.  She's doesn't have what I call "round" or "compact" muscles like Annie Sakamoto; Annie Thorisdottir's muscles are thinner and longer.

Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet: 9th place 2010
Crossfit Games, 5th place 2011 Crossfit
Games

23-year-old former gymnast (do you see a pattern here?) Camille  Leblanc-Bazinet is very petite (she's 5'2'' and weighs about 125 lbs), but a complete beast (a positive term) in the gym. She can back squat 240 lbs and deadlift 330 lbs.  However, you wouldn't be able to tell that just by looking at her; that's just her body type.

Heather Bergeron: owner of Crossfit New England,
1st place 2011 Crossfit Games Team Competition

33-year-old mom of three and former marathoner and triathlete, Heather Bergeron, is 5'6'' and weighs 131 lbs.  Notice that her muscles look long and lean  like Annie Thorisdottir's.  She has an awesome 6-pack (a lot of elite Crossfitters do; someday I hope I will too) and she's a little bigger proportionally in the legs.
           

Annie Sakamoto with fan, Jess

Now look at the following pictures of these ladies in a more relaxed positions and more clothes on.  Do they look "bulky" to you?  If you saw them in jeans and t-shirt you'd probably just think they must do some sort of exercise.  I don't think you'd guess that these ladies are WOD (Crossfit Workout Of the Day) killers and considered elite athletes.  All of them do the harderst body weight exercises such as muscle ups and rope climbs.   They can also lift up to three times their body weight.  I doubt most of us can compare to them even at our fittest.  So the concept of "bulking up" is increasingly ridiculous.

Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet

Women who say "I don't want to get bulky" from lifting weights don't fully understand how the human body works.  Women naturally produce between 5-10% the amount of testosterone that men do so just based on this fact it's not likely that a woman would actually gain muscle like a man. 

Annie Thorisdottir with her mom and sister in Iceland

I believe there are also many misconceptions about women with muscle in relation to beauty.  Some women may still consider these ladies "too muscular" and to that I honestly don't have much to say.  It makes me speechless - well almost.  If you want to lose body fat and do some kick-butt workouts, your muscles will grow and eventually show a little bit.  Why do some women consider that bad or undesirable?  Do women who think that the four Crossfit ladies above are "too muscular" prefer to be skinny and flabby with little or no muscle tone?  Is that what they consider healthy and fit?

Heather Bergeron

I've also heard the same argument except the wording was "too masculine", which makes me mad and sad at the same time.  They see healthy women as masculine?  By that "logic", women they claim look feminine must be either fat or skinny fat.  That's what a beautiful women looks like?  Weak and flabby?  What crappy standards for women to live up to!  Strong is beautiful, and weakness is not feminine.  Healthy, fit, strong women (in all their different body types) should be considered beautiful to both women and men.  Those are the standards women should set for themselves.

While doing power cleans at a non-Crossfit gym, I overheard this conversation among some skinny fat women around their mid twenties in age I'd guess.

Skinny fat woman 1: "I'm happy with the way I look."
Skinny fat woman 2: "I know, me too.  I don't want to lift weights and get bulky and look like a man."
Skinny fat woman 3: "I totally agree.  I'm sorry, I like my boobs."

What bothers me about this conversation, as I mentioned before, is that

1. Lifting weight does not make women "bulky".  
2. Muscular women, or you could say fit women, don't look like men.  Again, go back and look at Annie S., Heather, Annie T. and Camille; do they look like men to you?  Give me a break.  
3. Most women who do Crossfit consistently and eat a healthy diet (I'd say Zone, Paleo, Primal, etc.) will still have enough body fat to keep their bras up.  

Since breasts are mostly made up of fat and getting in shape will decrease your body fat, women may indeed lose some jiggle in the chest.  However, it's not as drastic as these three ladies probably think.  Besides, I've never heard of a boyfriend or husband complain that there wife got in shape and now has no boobs.  The only complaint I've ever heard is from the wife who got in shape who says her husband won't stay off of her now.  I guess there might be some men out there somewhere that think Crossfit ladies are "too masculine" but in the words of my wonderful husband, "Only weak men are intimidated by strong women".

Not only do I think that being strong is beautiful, it's also good for your body.  I don't think I have to argue that a good diet and exercise is beneficial for ones health, but I'm talking specifically about lifting weights here.  Besides losing body fat, lifting weights helps decrease a woman's chance of getting Type II Diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis, maintain muscle mass as we age, prevent injuries (because your muscles are stronger), and can help with depression.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that our bodies do not naturally improve with age.  Both men and women lose muscle mass with age.  The rate at which this naturally happens is mainly determined by genetics, but the point is that women need to lift weights just to maintain their current muscle mass as they age.  Since we women lose calcium in our bones as we get older it's even more important that we lift weights which helps keep our bones strong.  This happens because the tendons and muscles pull on the bones during weight bearing exercise and that stimulates the bones to produce more bone cells.  So it makes more sense that instead of women being paranoid to gain too much muscle they should worry about losing muscle mass and not maintaining what muscle they have as they age.

Hopefully you can see that women specifically should worry less about "getting bulky" and worry more about the location of the closest Crossfit gym to start some weight lifting. It's not only good for your body and long-term health, but I'd argue it's good mentally, emotionally, spiritually (topic for another entry) and heck, will probably even improve your sex life too!  So the next time you hear a woman make the excuse that they don't want to hit the gym because they "don't want bulk up" or something similar, you can try to educate them (warning; probably unwanted which results in dirty looks or getting "un-friended" on Facebook), or you could just smile and know that you're working your way to (or maintaining) true fitness and health for the long haul.