Women and Weight Training: Countering Myths and Misperceptions

[Intenceman]

Used to come here under ..............

Used to come here under .............the handle Heavy Duty Guy. A couple of things. HIT- High Intensitry Traiing never HAD to be one set per bodypart or evne exercise, though that's where the Nautilus people got to in later years and Mentzer after he started training genetically average people. So , as a result for a few years MOST "Hitters" seemed to go to one set. In the lasst or so, some found that 2 or 3 sets per exercise or 3 or more sets per bodypart. What happens though is that if you trully train to the maximum on your post workout sets is that it is very hard if not impossible to do more than a couple of hard sets on and exercise before you have to reduce your poundage and intensity, and if you do too many sets overall, you will make such inroads into your recovery ability that you will begin to overtrain.

 

[Intenceman]

One other thing, why a woman would wamt to take MALE hormones is beyond me, they almost always look worse- and incidently thats what they give women who want to change their sex to male, ie transsexuals. Check out the women bodybuilders from circa 1980 (who most peoplethought were sexy and hot) vs 1999 (whom relaly look digusting to most people, including a lot of male bodybuilders) or so and you will see the difference.
Train HARd- I rarely see women train really hard, even less than the guys- most of whom I see dont train hard enough either, and eat a well balanced diet with enough protein, rest and you will improve by leaps and bounds............

 

[wyst]

One other thing, why a woman would wamt to take MALE hormones is beyond me, they almost always look worse- and incidently thats what they give women who want to change their sex to male, ie transsexuals. Check out the women bodybuilders from circa 1980 (who most peoplethought were sexy and hot) vs 1999 (whom relaly look digusting to most people, including a lot of male bodybuilders) or so and you will see the difference.
Train HARd- I rarely see women train really hard, even less than the guys- most of whom I see dont train hard enough either, and eat a well balanced diet with enough protein, rest and you will improve by leaps and bounds............

Whatever.

 

[Reebok]

Women naturally have a little test in their bodies anyway. I love the effect test has on my body - it helps me train harder, develops a harder body plus the sides override the negative effects of PRozac on my sex drive - normally high but prozac took it away which left me very frustrated! I have a theory that men don't like women lifting or using AS because they are afraid of women being as strong and as capable as they are. A guy at a party last week was jealous his girlfriend was asking me about lifting and admiring my biceps, so he started asking me when the sex change opp was taking place. Thing is he meant male to female - he insisted I was born male! He was a very mixed up, afraid guy.

 

[Intenceman]

I am in favor of women lifting heavy since I rarely see it in gyms,maybe one in 15...i think thats great. I don't car how storng a woman is, I think she should be strong and capble. I don't feel threatened by ANYone lifting-How could that be threatening? As storng as I am? I'd like to see that, but I suspect the woman who wrote that is not aware of that men are 30-40% stronger in theri upper bodies. I don't think too many women are going tobe 240 lbs and squat 535 for reps, BB row 350 for reps, curl 185 or Incline 315 lbs,- I don't see any GUYS in my gym doing that either .....lol. Personally , I have over 15 years of experience so I've seen the evolution of the sport- especially the women's side.
It has changed- for the worse- and LOST popularity over the last 10 years or so. Some of you are too young to remember the explosion of interest in women's bodybuilding the late 80's with the advent of Rachel McClish and others. The decline was brought on when the abuse of anabolic steroids infiltrated the women's sport- sad but true.
Rarely do people train hard enough, men included. For women to not train properly- ie hard, heavy and intense, but then take steroids etc, is just pathetic.

 

[wyst]

Well, given that this is a site dedicated to women who *do* train hard, I'm not really sure what the point of your rambling, negative post is. Sure, people who take AS without tuning their training and diet first may be making a mistake, but, really, it's their mistake to make. If you took the trouble to actually read the posts here, you'd see that a good percentage of our members (including some mods, I believe) have never juiced, and that the advice given is usually to wait, and then to start slow.

In other words, the bizarre negativity aside, you're preaching to the choir, buddy.

The fact that you can lift whatever it is that you can lift, while impressive, makes no difference whatsoever to your argument.

Wyst

 

[Intenceman]

What bizaare negativity?, I was just saying sterods ruiend womens' professional bodybuilding, look at the attendence figures over the last 20 years and tell me they didn't. Why do you think Fitness competitions were started few years back?
as to truly hard traing, I applaud anyone who busts ass in the gym every week, but I only see about a rare individual who trains truly hard- I m talking to failure and beyond, not pumping or toning here. I hope this clears up the misunderstading.

 

[wyst]

What bizaare negativity?, I was just saying sterods ruiend womens' professional bodybuilding, look at the attendence figures over the last 20 years and tell me they didn't. Why do you think Fitness competitions were started few years back?
as to truly hard traing, I applaud anyone who busts ass in the gym every week, but I only see about a rare individual who trains truly hard- I m talking to failure and beyond, not pumping or toning here. I hope this clears up the misunderstading.

Well, that makes more sense, the part about training. Sure, applaud people who train hard. But why come here and say that people who don't train hard and take steroids are pathetic? It doesn't apply so much here, in my opinion. People come here to get and stay focused on their training. This hardly seems like the thread to be slamming competitive women's bodybuilding on. This is a place and specifically a thread to discuss why women need weight training and how they can benefit from it, and to dispell the "oh, lifting weights will make you manly" BS that is floating around out there.

As far as the steroids go, some women here take em and some don't. The pics I've seen here of the ones who do look grrrrrreat! And so do the ones who don't. It's a different look, or perhaps a difference of degree in some cases. But the ladies who've posted here are working hard and are proud of their work. I think if you'd read the boards, and looked at some of the pics, you'd see that our members are most likely not in danger of falling into the category that you have deemed pathetic. For the most part, they work hard and make informed decisions as to supplement use. If you want to debate the relative merits of women's bodybuilding that's another story. But neither that nor the posts you made about the men's hormones making women look like transexuals and so on are I think, on topic on this thread. And, although I can only speak for myself and am not a moderator, I would guess that the transexual comments probably aren't welcome on the women's board. I do KNOW that the comments you made about post 1999 women's bodybuilders being disgusting are pretty out of place.

Just my 2 cents.

Wyst

 

[Superfrk]

I agree with you totally, Also I want to point out that the more musclular bodybuiling females, while it is not the look that I desire in a mate: I still have a deep respect for the hard work and dedication that they had to have had to build their bodys.
Everybody is different and they may have different goals. The focus on this article was to educate women to some of the training myths and to help them achive those goals.

Well, that makes more sense, the part about training. Sure, applaud people who train hard. But why come here and say that people who don't train hard and take steroids are pathetic? It doesn't apply so much here, in my opinion. People come here to get and stay focused on their training. This hardly seems like the thread to be slamming competitive women's bodybuilding on. This is a place and specifically a thread to discuss why women need weight training and how they can benefit from it, and to dispell the "oh, lifting weights will make you manly" BS that is floating around out there.

As far as the steroids go, some women here take em and some don't. The pics I've seen here of the ones who do look grrrrrreat! And so do the ones who don't. It's a different look, or perhaps a difference of degree in some cases. But the ladies who've posted here are working hard and are proud of their work. I think if you'd read the boards, and looked at some of the pics, you'd see that our members are most likely not in danger of falling into the category that you have deemed pathetic. For the most part, they work hard and make informed decisions as to supplement use. If you want to debate the relative merits of women's bodybuilding that's another story. But neither that nor the posts you made about the men's hormones making women look like transexuals and so on are I think, on topic on this thread. And, although I can only speak for myself and am not a moderator, I would guess that the transexual comments probably aren't welcome on the women's board. I do KNOW that the comments you made about post 1999 women's bodybuilders being disgusting are pretty out of place.

Just my 2 cents.

Wyst

 

[RottenWillow]

Some posts here I think some of us newer girls would benefit some reading.