Womens Bodybuilding Blog

If you’ve been following my blog for sometime, than you know how female bodybuilding can be broken down into two parts; bulking and cutting. Bulking is the concept of putting on as much muscle as possible while minimizing the amount of fat you put on. Cutting is the concept of losing as much fast as possible while maintaining as much muscle as possible. Despite the fads that marketers create, a person cannot bulk and cut at the same time over the long term. Sure, a newbie to weight lifting could do such a thing, but for anyone looking to do this long term, you just can’t biologically do it.

The reason that you can’t do both comes down to simple calories. If you want to build muscle, you have to have a slight calorie surplus and if you want to lose fat, you have to have a slight calorie deficit. Obviously a deficit will help you lose fat, but you lose a little muscle too because you won’t be eating enough calories to maintain all your muscles.

It’s just life.

What bodybuilders have done is created cycles of bulking and cutting. This way you can focus on one for a period of time and than go to the other. My personal way of doing this is bulking first, than cutting. The reason that I choose to go this route is that as you bulk up, you put on more muscle. The more muscle you have on your body, the more efficient you are at burning calories. That means when you go to cut, you’ll be a much more efficient fat burning machine and that’s obviously what you want.

I’ve met a lot of people that try to maintain their low body fat percentage (well, not super low, but low) and this ends up stagnating their results. Bodybuilders rarely stay in the same physical place all the time. They’ll actually time out a cut to produce the lowest possible body fat percentage within a few days of a competition.

Are you someone that has been working at this bodybuilding thing for a while now and it doesn’t seem to matter what you do, you just don’t seem to put on any weight or size? This is an effect that I like to call the “Lanky Effect”. It’s something that lanky guys experience, but some women experience this too. It typically means that you’re not eating enough or you have a really fast metabolism that prevents you from putting on any weight.

I first suggest that you try to just eat more if this is the camp you fall into. I just want to make sure that you are having a problem with eating. I find a lot of people that give this excuse don’t eat as much as they tell you because they tend to splurge and that gives them a distorted view of what they eat. If you’re still having problems after that, than give my method I try.

I’m going to show you how to make a drink and you’re going to have to take it at least twice a day and squeeze it in between your meals. Don’t replace a meal with this drink. You have to add it in to your current diet.

This is the olive oil weight gainer.

2 scoops of whey

2 cups of milk (2%)

1 tablespoon of peanut butter

1/2 cup of oats

2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon of honey (for flavor)

Put all of this into a blender and blend it up. This should create one thick drink for you. Trust me, it doesn’t taste too bad. This should work out to about 900 calories for the drink. Meaning if you get two of these a day, you’ll add an additional 1800 calories to your current diet. If this doesn’t help you put on weight, than you might want to speak to a doctor and make sure you’re healthy.

I thought a well deserved post on the diet should be in order here. I think (or at least hope) you understand the importance of carbs in the whole bodybuilding process. I know on television that carbs get a bad reputation, but I hope you see above all the misinformation and recognize that carbs provide the energy for a great workout. I’m sure you’ve had those times at the gym where you just seemed to be full of energy. That can be linked to a period of carbs being eaten. So here are the best carbs for female bodybuilders:

Cereal

Now I’m not talking about the sugar filled food that is advertised to children. You want the actual stuff that is healthy.  My personal favorite is Raison Bran. A cool thing you can do is mix a scoop of whey protein into your milk. Sometimes people don’t like doing that, but you can.

Bagels

The main reason that I like bagels is that they’re exceptionally handy. You just cut it open and pop it in the toaster. It contains a lot of carbs per serving, so grabbing one of these before you workout can be great.

Bran Muffins

I’m a big fan of bran muffins and I usually throw raisons in with the ones I make. The cool thing you can do is add in whey with the rest of the ingredients. This helps increase the overall protein.

Potatoes

Potatoes are another one of those foods that you can make quite easily and contain a huge amount of carbs. Potatoes contain one unique characteristic known as insulinogenic, which means that having a potato after you workout will allow you to replenish your glycogen reserves much faster.

I thought I should do a post on the difference between weight machines and free weights. A lot of people have different philosophies on this and therefore you’re going to get a range of views on this. Before I give my opinion on it, I thought I should give the facts that can’t be disputed.

Weight Machines

• Less range of movement
• Safer
• Focuses more on one muscle
• Doesn’t require stabilizers
• Limited in overall value (since you can only focus on one muscle)

Free Weights

• More range of movement
• More risk (not much though)
• Focuses on the main muscle and the stabilizers
• Much more variety and use

I am a fan of the free weights for the percise reason that you’re not locked into a specific movement and you can focus on stabilizers too. You can do bench presses with a machine and you won’t be able to do the same amount with free weights because your stabilizers having been trained. The big issue is that the machine only focuses on the main muscle and that’s it.

I think weight machines do have a specific place though because they are different from free weights. I think they can help you get over plateaus. The problem with plateaus isn’t that your muscles aren’t progressively getting stronger, it’s that the stabilizers and main muscles are out of equilibrium. That means your stabilizers are too strong and they’ve been over compensating for your main muscle and that results in your main muscle not growing.

In this case if you used a machine it would help rebuild that muscle for a period of time, than you could go back to the free weights and be able to beat your plateau.

I heard that the British Natural Bodybuilding Championship will start to use lie detectors in an attempt to test for any banned/illegal substance. The reason for this is that steriod use can be hidden from tests if you know what you’re doing. A lot of people would assume that when you test for steroids that you would just see if there is an elevated testosterone level in the body. I suppose that would be fine, but all humans are different and there is no universal number for what is normal and what isn’t. Some people are more naturally anabolic, which means that when they start lifting weights they produce extra testosterone automatically.

The way the tests really work is that they look for a byproduct of a specific substance. There is typically some sort of reaction that occurs, which can be measured and prove that a substance is being abused. The problem with this type of testing is that if you’re smart enough, you can mask the mask and you’ll come up fully clean.

This has been a particular problem (or at least a fear) by the British Natural Bodybuilding Championship. What they’re going to go do is give a lie detector to see if you can pass it when you’re asked questions about things like steroids.  This is supposed to help and I’m sure for the most part that it will be accurate, but there is a particular reason why polygraphs aren’t used in court rooms.

So what do you think of this kind of decision? I like it, but I always have that fear that I will fail it for some reason.

Ambition is a very important part of female bodybuilding, but I think the better way to describe it would be controlled ambition. When it comes to thinks like work, if it be your job or yard work, the harder you work – the faster it gets done. Or in other words, the more ambitious you are and the harder you work the faster the results will come. This couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to actual bodybuilding and that is why I want to give a wake up call for controlled ambition.

The reason that so many people fail at bodybuilding (give up) is that they don’t understand this is a long term thing that happens in small steps. They have the ambition at first and want to work really hard, but you’re not going to get results any faster.  There are no short cuts or quickfixes to bodybuilding. All you can do is take one step at a time and make sure that you’re going in the right direction. This is short-term and long-term thinking put together. Most people can’t seem to do it properly.

Here is what happens when you’re not in the one step at a time mindset:

You Injure Yourself

It is inevitable for a person taht over does it with their ambition. Your body isn’t something that continuously beat up on and expect it to work properly. Bodybuilding is the process of destroying parts of your body, so you rebuild it with more tissue. You can’t beat it up too bad.

You Burn Yourself Out (Mentally)

Everyone has that fire in their belly when they start. They’re just dying to put on some muscle and get started. The first week is a great and productive week, but results don’t come after a week. It takes a lot of time and it is something that happens one step at a time. Most people end up burning out mentally.

When I talk to people that are trying to put on muscle, I usually get the same sort of talking points about what they’re going to do. They’re either telling me how great their workout is or about their diet. I’m not suggesting that these two points aren’t extremely important to muscle growth, but rest is often an overlooked aspect of this and very important.

I remember having a job with consistent hours and I was very consistent with my workouts, eating, resting[time in between workouts] and sleep. My results were absolutely amazing. Than I quit the job and went to another job that had shift work. There were two shifts 5:30am – 1:30pm and 1:30pm – 9:30pm. The fact is that I had to work these two shifts in a row all the time.

All other aspects of my muscle growth like workouts, eating and resting were all the same. But I had challenges with getting a full 8-9 hours of sleep a night. My sleep started to change; some nights it was long and some nights it was short. What happened to my results? They plateaued.

I wanted to do this post to help illustrate to you how important sleep is for you. I know there are a lot of people out there that are plateauing with their results, even though they’re doing everything right. It could very well be your sleeping that is causing you to plateau.

When you’re growing muscle, you’re essentially ripping and destroying it, so that it will grow back in a stronger state. Beating up your body like this is rough and you just need the rest. The majority of your rest is coming from your sleeping state and its when your body replenishes a lot of different things. If you don’t get the full 8-9 hours a night than your body is unable to replenish everything and your results will plateau.

I was actually looking at an article I seen on Newsmax that listed the best foods you can eat to help build muscle tissue. Obviously most of the list made sense to me, but I was surprised by what wasn’t on there.

1. Eggs
2. Almonds
3. Salmon
4. Yogurt
5. Beef
6. Olive Oil
7. Water
8. Coffee

I guess you’re probably wondering what I’m wondering… where’s chicken? Where’s tuna? I’m not sure why they’re on the list, but people always quote them to me.

Now I think it is important to point out that this is a list of foods that will help. This shouldn’t become your diet. There is much more to a diet than just the 8 things listed above (even if chicken and tuna are on the list). Incorporating more of these foods into your diet is what will help you.

These foods alone won’t help you. They’re good and having eggs for breakfast is good, but the reality is that the AMOUNT you eat is far more important. Having two eggs for breakfast isn’t going to make you put on huge sums of muscle. That’s just 14 grams of protein. It’s nothing!

It is the amount that counts. I remember times when I would eat 8 egg whites for breakfast. Yeah, it isn’t the most appetizing thing, but it is the amount that counts. When you eat 8 egg whites every day for breakfast, you will put on mass. It’s just an inevitability.

I was looking at some information on steroid use and a lot of the information shocked me. I’d first like to point out that I’m not actually advocating the use of steroids in anyway. Due to the fact that this substance is illegal, there just isn’t much research done on the subject. For all we know the dangers of steroid use could possible be overblown… ie: going into a ‘roid rage and killing yourself.

Anyway, I’m not advocating it and if you want to be a professional or competing female bodybuilder, than don’t you dare touch steroids.

People Don’t Admit To Using

Surprisingly people that use steroids will not actually tell a person about it, even their spouse. If you were using cocaine and cheating on your spouse, you’d be more likely to confess that than the fact that you’re using steroids. I’m not exactly sure why people are like this. I suppose if we had more research we could tell if it is was the drug or not. It could be due to the fact that society doesn’t view it as socially acceptable. Another reason could be low self-esteem and they don’t want to admit using something to help improve themselves.

There Are Positives – As Well As Negatives

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a very objective person and that comes from the fact that I’ve always been into science. I can look at the facts for what they are and there is a lot of positive things that steroids do. Steroids are used by doctors to help people.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t turn a blind eye to the fact that steroid using wrestlers that go off the deepend, killing their family and themselves.

Most Users Aren’t Athletes

We always get the perception from the media that the people using steroids are the ones that are athletes looking for a competitive edge. I’m not saying athletes don’t use it in high amounts. I’m not sure why they’d do it in the first place because they will be drug tested.

The fastest growing amount of users are just regular people. They’re not trying to get a competitive edge in physical activity. They just want to improve their body.

Check out this study at the Texas A&M University Here. We’ve been told for years that we have to get our cholesterol low because that is the healthy thing for you to do, but this study showed some very interesting results that I thought you should know about.

Let me first point out that I’m not advocating getting high cholesterol or anything along those lines. I just think it is good food for thought when you think about what studies try to tell us to do.

The study noticed that more impressive muscle gains occurred with a person that had high cholesterol, rather than low cholesterol.

The study was conducted on older people from ages 60 to 69. The low cholesterol participants were on cholesterol lowering medication. During the period of the study they exercised and went through strength training exercises. They also ate very similar meals to keep the study as consistent as possible.

Here is what was said by the studies investigator…

“As you exercise, your muscles can become sore because they are rebuilding muscle mass. More cholesterol may result in a more robust inflammatory response. We know that inflammation in some areas, such as near the heart, is not good, but for building muscles it may be beneficial, and cholesterol appears to aid in this process.”

It’s important to note that high cholesterol is very hard on your heart and can cause serious (deadly) health problems, so that should be enough to scare you away from it. But it is interesting to note that it actually can help with building muscle tissue.