Hello! I’m so glad you’re here!
Have you noticed? The gym parking lot has been packed lately.
Classes are filled with women (and men too) throwing their bodies around in bootcamps and HIIT classes believing the hype in class descriptions with promises of toning and sculpting. Those terms need to die.
Reality check: If you’re doing multiple HIIT classes each week you’re burning muscle. The number on the scale might go down because of a percentage of fat loss, while muscle loss is happening too. So yeah you’ll get smaller – and very likely weaker too.
Enter Ozempic and Wegovy: these drugs reduce the desire to eat, thereby also reducing protein intake, which will reduce muscle = reduction in strength.
Muscle definition occurs when there’s muscle hypertrophy (growth), and a degree of fat loss around muscles. Nutrition plays an important role here – protein, healthy carbs, and fat.
Strength training with appropriate nutrition can lead to hypertrophy and the appearance or definition of muscles. But here’s the thing – those influencers promising to grow your butt, tone your arms, get abs, are selling a lie. The ability to grow muscle (to make it show definition) is mostly due to genetics.
Train for strength. You’ll make the muscle you need.
Newsflash: You can be strong and fit with the body you have, and training for strength should certainly not be all about losing weight, or even about losing fat. Train to make your fat healthy too.
People (read “women”, although the studies have so far been done only on men of course) who exercise a lot (i.e., a minimum of 2 hours of endurance exercise training per week) throughout their lives have the ability to use their stored fuel (fat is fuel!) more efficiently. They have more mitochondria overall, which allows for more respiration and the ability for fat cells to release more of the hormones important for the body’s energy balance. So this means you can train your fat to be healthy.
Why Women need to stop chasing “toning” and “sculpting” and build strength.
For decades, the fitness industry has sold women a dream wrapped in misleading terms like toning, sculpting, and lengthening muscles. Melt fat, and at the same time try this supplement or cream to eliminate that ugly cellulite. 80-90% of women have cellulite, even if with low body fat. Men have it too, but it’s a hugely successful industry targeted to you guessed it – women. There have been a variety of studies into the effectiveness of different techniques to get rid of cellulite, but that either the procedures did not work, or the research methodology was flawed.
For this reason, any promise to get rid of cellulite should be approached with significant doubt.
By the way, one of the greatest athletes of all time, rugby superstar, Ilona Maher nails it in this terrific instagram post from Tactic Nutrition. She eats (a lot, to fuel her body!), she has cellulite (we all have it), and she’s absolutely gorgeous.
The buzzwords have done more harm than good, reinforcing the idea that women should strive to be smaller rather than stronger. It’s time to change that mindset. Smaller = weaker. Weaker = frailty, and frailty leads to falls, broken bones, and terrible outcomes.
I just came across this hilarious, but real video of ridiculous methods women have used to shrink their bodies!
The myth of “toning” and “sculpting”
Many women believe that lifting light weights for high repetitions will “tone” or “sculpt” their muscles without making them bulky. In reality, there is no such thing as toning or sculpting—muscles either grow or shrink. And women are not able to get bulky unless they’re consuming excess calories, and have a layer of fat around muscles. Some women might desire a very muscular-looking physique, which they might achieve with supplements or hormones, plus genetics – but “bulk” isn’t a result of strength training. Strength is.
The marketing bs terms, “toned” and “sculpted” just mean there is stronger, visible muscle (strength and hypertrophy), usually along with a lower body fat percentage. Women and men body builders and figure models have reduced body fat to nearly nothing with strict dietary and exercise protocols, and they achieve muscle definition, but not necessarily strength. By strength training, I mean progressive overload, (challenging weight, increasing and decreasing lower reps over time), not endless reps with tiny weights.
Strength training – heavy lifting, helps burn fat, and even improves skin!
Strength Over Aesthetics?
Focusing on strength rather than chasing a specific look offers benefits that go far beyond aesthetics. Here’s the thing, you’ll look and feel great with more muscle.
- Increased Confidence: Lifting heavy weights and seeing progress builds confidence that spills into other areas of life.
- Improved Bone Health: Strength training helps prevent osteoporosis, a major concern for women as they age.
- Better Metabolism: More muscle means a higher resting metabolism (BMR), making it easier to maintain your healthy fat/muscle %.
- Ability to withstand injury: A strong body is resilient and durable. Injuries can happen, and there is everyday wear and tear, but not to a significant negative effect. The ability to withstand or overcome the negative effects of injury and to return to, at least, pre-injury baseline function or, possibly, improved function.
Breaking free from the “smaller” mentality.
For too long, women have been conditioned to believe that the ideal female body is one that takes up less space. (anyone else think this feels like a long-term attempt to marginalize women?) But strength training shifts the focus from shrinking to becoming capable. Instead of asking, “How do I get smaller?”, ask “How do I get stronger?”—because strength is empowering. It makes me so sad to hear women in the gym say to one another, “you look so great, have you lost weight?”, and even, “awesome, you look so skinny!”.
Smaller is less of everything, less muscle too – and less muscle leads to weakness and frailty over time.
We need to resist programs targeted to women advocating for shrinking your body. Your body is the one that works for you every day your whole life. Make it strong.
We do not want to be less than.
Stop chasing the illusion of “toned.” “Sculpting” is the stupid girlie term for muscle definition which will occur as you train strength and adjust nutrition to appropriate levels of protein, carbs, and fat.
Lift heavy, fuel your body, and embrace strength – you are capable of so much more than you know.
Your body is not meant to be less—it’s meant to be powerful.
Let’s get together at getupkeepmoving.com
Onward~
x
Polli
