Bulking up – meaning putting on a lot of ‘bulky’ muscle – is the biggest fear females I know have regarding resistance exercise.
I would like to start spreading a new rumor – but this one differs from the ‘resistance training will make you bulky’ one. This one is based on fact.
Doing resistance exercise is good for you whether you are trying to put on weight or lose it, whether you are interested in health, body composition, or athletic performance.
Unless you are expending and consuming exactly the same amount of calories, then your body is in one of two states:
- Consuming more calories than you are expending
In this state your body will put on some weight. If you are resistance training then much of this will be muscle (depending on other factors such as protein intake, training, total calorie surplus etc). However, if you were not working out then these extra calories could well end up being put on as fat and not muscle! So good news for resistance training either way.
- Consuming less calories than you are expending
If you are in this state then you will be losing weight. If you are resistance training you will be maintaining your muscle mass (or perhaps even slightly increasing it depending on what studies you read) as you lose fat. This is the ultimate situation for any person trying to lose fat, as they maintain ‘good’ muscle weight while losing ‘bad’ fat.
The amount of muscle mass you carry is still a big determinant of your basal metabolic rate (calories you consume from doing nothing), and so muscle really is your friend. In other words, by resistance training your ‘metabolism’ does not decrease, and may even increase when losing weight.
So get into the gym, get some weights, or even do some exercises at home.
Please feel free to spread this rumor.
