How muscular can a woman get naturally?
How muscular can a woman get naturally?
Women's innate muscular potential
What can a female lifter accomplish? Only two camps appear to exist. The general population believes that if a woman touches a heavy barbell, she will transform into the SheHulk the next day.
The fact that women have 15 times less testosterone than males is sometimes cited to explain why women can't build much muscle in the first place.
As a result, the general consensus in today's fitness circles is that women should exercise like men and should not expect to see significant muscular gain.
Women's innate muscular potential
Although this is true, the causation is in the opposite way. Before I explain why let's take a look at how women's inherent physical potential compares to men's.
How much muscle can a lady grow in percentage terms compared to a man? Does it scale with testosterone, so that women can only grow 7% of the muscle that males can? Is it around half?
It's a hundred percent. During strength training, women develop the same percentage of muscle mass as males. Women, in fact, attain the same amount of growth and strength as males.
The starting point is the sole difference. Men begin with higher muscle mass and strength, but both men and women see the same proportionate gain in muscle size.
Protein metabolism research has led to the same result. After training and eating, women generate the same amount of muscle protein as males.
In fact, according to one study, women have a greater rate of muscle protein synthesis than males when they have the same amount of muscle mass.
In top sports, men vs. women
Consider this if you believe this is all just foolish theory from lab coats studying novices. Female athletes with natural muscle mass have 85 percent of the muscular mass of male athletes. Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting were among the sports investigated. Three variables can readily account for the 15% discrepancy.
- Women have a greater body fat percentage due to genetics. Women have 12 percent necessary body fat to control their hormones, but men have only 3%. And, of course, boobs.
- People have lesser expectations of women, and even most women underestimate their physical capabilities when compared to males. Simply telling them they were on steroids enhanced their strength increases by 321 percent, according to well-known research. Before using the phony steroids, these were accomplished lifters who could bench and squat over 300 pounds (137 kg). Furthermore, the anabolic-androgenic steroid regimen in issue consisted of only 70 mg of Dianabol per week. Advanced athletes get only a few percent more strength when given the same dose of real Dianabol. So, what do you think it means to tell a woman she has 15 times less testosterone than a man?
- Because there are more males in sports, the competition to reach the highest level is tougher. Male athletes at the elite level are most likely the finest the male race has to offer. There may be more potential world record holders among women who will never know because they never attempt.
What about the male hormone testosterone?
Higher testosterone indicates more muscle mass in an individual. That is without a doubt the case. The relationship between genders, on the other hand, becomes considerably weaker. “The difference in lean body mass is sufficient to account for the observed differences in strength and aerobic performance seen between the sexes without the need to hypothesize that performance is in any way determined by testosterone levels,” Healy et al. concluded in their study of elite athletes.
How is it possible? As I said in my BioSignature review, testosterone works differently in men and women. We know why testosterone isn't needed for muscle development in women because we know why it isn't needed in animals.
Growth factors such as IGF-1 and growth hormone appear to be taking over testosterone's anabolic role in males. Women's growth factors are more significant than men's for strength and muscle building.
Because women generate three times as much growth hormone as males and have the same amount of IGF-1, having less testosterone does not limit how much muscle they may gain.
To make things even more complicated, sex hormones and growth factors interact with one another, and all of these hormones interact with your genes.
In other words, claiming that women have a lower ability to grow muscle mass because they do not have as much testosterone as males is a fallacy.
The other sex hormone is testosterone.
Not only is estrogen not the evil guy, but neither is testosterone. Most people, including women, see estrogen as an evil hormone that causes bloating and other undesirable effects.
Despite the fact that the specific negative consequences of estrogen are rarely explained, most people believe that it is detrimental to your body composition.
This is a load of rubbish. I discussed the beneficial effects of estrogen on abdominal fat storage in my post on hormones and fat reduction, but estrogen has a lot more powers.
- Muscle repair is aided by estrogen.
- Estrogen is an anti-catabolic hormone that helps to prevent muscle loss.
- Estrogen helps to keep your joints, bones, and tendons healthy.
- Estrogen does not cause weight gain. Estrogen, on the other hand, boosts your metabolism.
Why aren't women living up to their full potential?
Women and men have similar innate physical potential. They have a number of benefits over males. So, why aren't there more muscular women in the media?
- In athletics and the gym, women are underrepresented. Female athletes are underrepresented even at the Olympic level. It holds true even in science. In scientific research, women make up more than half of the participants.
- Even if women go to the gym, the majority of their time is spent on the treadmill or with pink dumbbells.
- Women are not held to the same standards as males. When a guy benches frequently, it is interpreted as a show of social authority. If a lady benches frequently, she is seen as an oddity, others become concerned, and men's egos sting and shrivel.
- Many of the ladies I teach have told me that when they bench more than a plate, they are told not to lift that heavy at the gym.
- Many women use contraceptives, which might prevent them from progressing in their strength training. Many birth control medications reduce testosterone activity, lower growth factor levels, and raise cortisol levels, all of which inhibit muscle building.
- Because progestin competes with testosterone for the androgen receptor, it is largely the progestin content of the contraceptive that is detrimental.
Finally, despite the stigma, women who exercise seriously typically train like males, which is not in line with their natural strengths. Women have numerous advantages over males in the gym since they generate far more estrogen than men.
Women don't become as tired as men do, and they recover faster after a workout. There are several more significant variations in metabolism, anatomy, neurology, and physiology between men and women: check this page for a comprehensive overview of why and how women should not exercise like men.
Conclusion
It's past time for us to stop treating women as second-class citizens. Women have the same relative muscle-building capacity as males. It is up to them to realize their full potential. If they do, they should recognize that they are not males and train accordingly.
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