|
Women Are Into
Bodybuilding.
Women's Fitness
Bodybuilding has blossomed into a legitimate career field that is
attracting those women as well
as men who are willing to make
the necessary personal
sacrifices to achieve success.
However, no longer is the weight
room the exclusive domain of
contest-oriented bodybuilders
and big-time pro athletes such
as
football, basketball, baseball
and hockey players. It would
appear that on the whole,
Americans have finally come to a
point of intelligent awareness
about weight training and an
appreciative acceptance of
bodybuilding and bodybuilders.
Within the past ten
the number of "everyday people"
working out with the diverse
types of weight-training
equipment - Camm II, Cybex,
Nautilus, Universal, Weight
Master, or "free weights"
(barbells and dumbbells) - has
risen markedly. There has also
been a noticeable increase in
the number of amateur and
professional physique contests
along with an increase in
competitors and audience size.
Even a casual observer of this
sport would be hard pressed to
fail to notice that not only is
the number of competitors
getting deeper but the quality
is getting better with each new
contest.
Women's
Fitness is now a big
business, a multimillion dollar
a year industry, that has
attracted a host of assorted
entrepreneurial types. Gym
owners, magazine publishers,
sports-apparel clothiers,
promoters, agents, producers of
weight-lifting videos, all are
currently earning enough money
from the realm of "glistening
bodies and tingling muscles" to
afford themselves a relatively
comfortable lifestyle. And their
cumulative input has helped to
make professional bodybuilding
more sophisticated, more
complex, and much more
profitable than it was in
previous years. Of course,
innovative and sunny California
is the Mecca for bodybuilders,
with Florida and New York tying
for second. Nonetheless,
statistics show that more muscle
books and magazines, exercising
equipment and attire, in
addition to numerous other
health and fitness items, are
being sold at the present time
than ever before.
Now to the uninitiated, the
world of competitive
bodybuilding might appear to be
a strange world. And, in truth,
it is undeniably different from
the world most people are used
to. It is somewhat of an
esoteric world -- a world with
its own unique language, norms,
culture, and particular
geographic locations, both in
the states and in foreign
countries, where accomplished
practitioners of this subculture
are looked upon as being
demigods and are rewarded with
huge sums of money.
It is a world where the human
body is molded and shaped by
"pumping iron," lifting heavy
poundage weights a few reps to
build "bulk" and "mass," and
lifting light poundage weights
multiple reps to acquire
"definition" and "cuts." It is a
world where the body is divided
into seven-muscle groups: the
abdomen, the back, the buttocks,
the chest, the arms, the legs
and the shoulders, with no
single group of these muscles
being more important than any
one of the others. It is a world
where the bodybuilder, in an
effort to fashion the perfect
physique, experiences strain,
soreness and pain. It is a world
of special foods,
protein
drinks, supplemental vitamins
and strict pre-contest dieting.
It is a world where both male
and female bodybuilders pray
daily for maximum muscle growth
gains. It is a world where some
of these bodybuilders inject
male hormones into their systems
to assure an increase in their
muscle size and strength.
It is a world where bodybuilders
- other than fulfilling the
fundamental requirements of
being genetically endowed,
training hard and having a
well-choreographed stage
presentation - must be
good-looking, articulate,
personable and well-versed on
the topics of anatomy,
physiology, nutrition, weight
management and the historical
evolution of bodybuilding in
order to be considered true
world-class competitors. At one
time women, in their
traditionally more sedentary
life role, were not as
athletically inclined as men.
They were neither encouraged to
evolve physically nor to engage
in strenuous physical
activities. They were
encouraged, however, to put on
skimpy bathing suits and appear
onstage at male physique
contests to hand out trophies to
the winners and to provide a
pleasurable diversion for the
predominantly male audience.
Well, today, another citadel of
the noble male animal has
stubbornly but emphatically
bitten the dust, as women have
muscled their way into muscledom.
The majority of modern-day women
who weight train do so because
they have realized that it can
improve their health, enhance
their overall physical fitness
and appearance and better their
athletic performance. But in
addition to the aforementioned,
other women have realized that
magazine exposure, television
coverage, acting and modeling
assignments, plus physique
contests, seminars, mail-order
businesses, the endorsement of
weight-training equipment, gym
shoes, workout attire, besides
sundry additional health-related
products have brought worldwide
attention and financial gain to
a sizable number of professional
women bodybuilders. And some of
these women generate incomes
that range in the
six-figure-a-year earnings
bracket.
Consequently, competitive
women's bodybuilding has become
a fast growing sport, adding a
fresh and exciting dimension to
the bodybuilding scene. And the
woman bodybuilder has come to be
a positive symbol for her
badgered sex caught up in
exploitative propaganda of
gimmicky ways to obtain instant
beauty and good health.
Nevertheless, despite all that's
been said, far too many women
still labor under gross physical
and physiological misconceptions
about weight training that can
impede their physical progress.
As an example, scores of women
continue to believe that weight
training will cause them to
become "muscle-bound" and look
like a man. This is a fallacy.
Women don't have the male
hormone testosterone in abundant
enough quantity to produce the
Herculean - sized muscles of
competitive male bodybuilders.
And there is simply no way for
women to bring these muscles
into being without making a
conscious decision to do so by
taking harmful drugs.
Furthermore, reshaping the body
and improving stamina and
strength to endure as well as
bounce back from the daily grind
of life are one thing, whereas
competitive bodybuilding is
another thing. In competitive
bodybuilding, the athlete works
very hard on his or her muscles
with the singular aim of forging
a rock-solid, power-packed,
well-defined physique for
competition that a conventional
thinker might consider to be an
unsightly physique. Therefore,
those women who are naturally
prone to gain weight, and those
who are turned off at the
thought of even possibly
developing gigantic muscles can
prevent these things from
occurring by eating moderately,
by working out with light
poundage weights at a high
number of repetitions and by not
injecting male hormones into
their systems.
Due to the voluminous amount of
information currently available
on health and exercise, many
women know about gains they
can derive from cardiovascular
and flexibility training. They
know aerobic activities as
bicycling, dancing, jogging,
walking and swimming will burn
fat, lower blood pressure,
heighten metabolism, make the
cardiovascular system operate
more efficiently, and strengthen
and tighten the legs and
buttocks. Yet many of these
women don't know what to do
about making the other muscles
of the body firmer and stronger.
They initially come to a gym
with high hopes of getting rid
of expanded hips and thick
thighs, as well as making their
bodies tone, which to them
usually means losing fat without
developing gigantic muscles.
Having primarily relied on
dieting for weight control or
reduction, they see gym training
as a method of speeding up the
calorie burning, streamlining
process. Unfortunately, these
women don't understand the
relationship between muscle and
shape. Dieting and aerobics
alone will leave them with
unappealing, unshaped muscles
unless they do some kind of
resistance training to better
their bodies overall muscular
condition. Muscle, unlike fat,
can be shaped and contoured. And
most women would benefit by
losing an inch of adipose tissue
and replacing it with a
half-inch of muscle tissue.
Women have the same skeletal
muscles as men, and, as with
men, their muscles need to be
properly exercised to form a
truly well-conditioned,
well-proportioned physique.
Women also need to be aware that
strength and femininity are not
mutually exclusive. A woman can
be strong with a "hard body" and
be sexually desirable and
feminine as well. Moreover, the
double standard that permits men
to grow old, but not women,
should be abolished. Still,
training the body becomes even
more necessary with advancing
age. Without some kind of
resistance training the muscles
begin to sag and atrophy while a
woman is in her early 20s. And
by the time she reaches her 30s
or 40s, it's quite possible for
her to lose all the sex appeal
she was so proud of when she was
young. Obviously, weight
training cannot stop the aging
process. But it can stave off
the limitations of old age by
keeping the body healthy and
strong. Weight training slows
down, and in some cases
reverses, what time and gravity
inflict on the body. As a
consequence, a woman can have an
eye-catching, physically fit
body regardless of what her
chronological age may be. Thus,
weight-trained women are
revealing to women around the
globe that through weight
training, aerobic exercise and
proper diet, women can have the
type of body that is
athletically and aesthetically
ideal for them: lean, firm,
well-balanced, vigorous and
youthful. And by way of media
exposure, women bodybuilders
have been able to demonstrate to
the public at large the beauty,
grace, power, and sinewy
muscularity that can be attained
by women.
Outlined below is a basic list
of anatomical and exercise
principles that women should
keep in mind so as to assist
them in reaping the most
realistic results from their
weight-training workouts:
1. Women's muscles do get bigger
from working out with weights,
but not that much bigger.
2. Muscle mass in women usually
brings about improvement in
muscle shape, which is revealed
by way of a more appealing,
well-formed physique.
3. Through exercise you burn fat
stored in the body to uncover
the muscle beneath the skin. Fat
never changes into muscle.
4. If you finish your set of
repetitions too easily (for
instance, you could have done 3
or 4 more reps), you should
think about using a heavier
weight.
5. Free weights and machines
perform the same function: they
provide resistance against which
your muscles can contract. One
type of equipment does not
necessarily make you thicker and
the other type slimmer.
6. Working out with free weights
has a different feel from
working out with machines. So
you will have to experiment with
both to find out which one is
appropriate to use for the
exercise you're doing.
7. In most cases, a woman's
upper body is much smaller and
weaker than her lower body. For
this reason, the upper body must
be worked a lot more to make it
bigger and stronger.
8. The more notable physical
changes require the greatest
amount of time and work;
exercise helps in controlling
body weight but not to the
exclusion of diet. You shouldn't
look for, nor expect, a dramatic
overnight change in your weight
and physique.
9. Progressive-resistance
training is not enough, you need
aerobic and flexibility
training, too. In fact, you
should get involved with various
kinds of exercise to keep your
workout interesting as well as
to produce total-body fitness. |