Fitness, General Fitness, Personal Training, Weight Loss
Rather strangely my favourite clients are those ladies with a fear of the weights, and especially with regard to a particular body part. The amount of women who I have trained who are convinced that their ‘problem legs, and bum’ shouldn’t go near a heavy weight outweighs all other groups!
So what do you do if you have always been unhappy with your ‘big legs’? Should you run for the hills from the weights section, but try not to run pushing through your thighs in case they get more muscular!?
Without going into too much boring detail women do not have enough testosterone to be able to easily build muscle, it just won’t happen. “But I once trained legs for a month and they got really big!” I hear you cry.
With a risk of sounding patronising I challenge this to be true! Why do gyms up and down the country fill on a Friday night at 7pm with men for chest and arm blasts? They FEEL as though they get more muscular for a night out, but I can guarantee they haven’t grown muscle in two hours!! What is happening here is the simple filling of blood into the muscle, indeed causing a very temporary size increase and a feeling of intense immediate growth. But very shortly after you are back to where you were.
Remember particularly if we are not used to weights the sensation of the ‘pump’ is a strange intense and alien feeling. We feel instantly enormous. After that the muscle may feel sore as it tries to recover, making it feel heavy, and we are more aware of its existence; but this is not bigger! To top it off the muscle is awakened, and it absorbs fluid and carbohydrates like it hasn’t been able before. But this absorption does not keep continuing to get larger and larger; it just absorbs and drains like a battery of energy.
We cannot hide in fear forever. Let’s face it Beyoncé doesn’t have the rough end of the body and beauty gifts, yet in crueller moments I see people online discussing her ‘fat thighs’. I see people and sites commenting how good Victoria Secret models look, and that many stars like J-Lo, Rihanna, Christina Aguilera, Kim K have ‘huge legs’ or bum.
So what should they do? Must they live in fear of them growing even further? My theory is quite the opposite. Hours and hours of experience and fantastic results (if I do say so myself) has taught me having a bigger area can be to your advantage. Embrace it!
A larger area is often a stronger area, this means you can lift heavier, with more intensity, and burn more calories than ever. With a carefully planned food plan it won’t even have a surplus of calories to even attempt to grow. Accept your body and blast those big legs hard!! Do you know what will happen? You will train harder, get stronger, train without fear, and burn more calories than ever. Your legs will not grow like you imagine; they will shed fat and actually shrink!! Remember quite often we have a larger body part not, dare I say it, because it is all huge muscle but because it may be more prone to holding fat. You certainly do not need to fear training a body part that holds more fat!! And if you are lucky enough to be blessed with more muscular thighs don’t fear them turning you into Arnie, it won’t happen!
I wasn’t blessed with the perfect body from birth, and not many women end up as Victoria Secret Models. But those models Instagraming garden workouts holding 2kg dumbells looked like that before they got a trainer, and usually look the same in 25 years, whatever they do!! Have you seen any make much change?
There are unsung personal trainers with in depth knowledge dramatically altering bodyfat levels in the real world. These changes are happening with sustainable nutrition plans, and no fear of heavy weights on those big legs! So join the club and make a serious change without fear this summer.
