photo credit: jeff medaugh
Companies selling weight loss and fitness products are often trying to find the best way to market to women. And one of the marketing gimmicks I’ve been hearing far too often lately is that a certain type of exercise (usually pilates) will help women develop “long, lean muscles.” The other variation on this theme is that a particular exercise will help women develop “dancer’s legs” or “dancer’s muscles.”
While having the muscular, yet slender body of a dancer is appealing to most of us, unfortunately, genetics play a huge role in how your body looks when you are fit. Some women have a naturally long and lanky build, others have a more athletic build, and still others (like myself) are curvy. Doing pilates will not make my muscles long and lean any more than lifting heavy weights will make a naturally slender woman have bulky muscles.
So, what about the claims, then? Can lifting heavy weights make muscles shorten and look bigger? And in contrast, can light weights or pilates-type exercises make those muscles longer and more slender? In a word, NO. If you exercise your muscles, they will get stronger. If the muscle is short (like the bicep or deltoid), it may get stronger, and grow larger, but it will remain short. If the muscle is long (like the quadriceps or hamstrings), it will remain long, even as it gets stronger and grows larger. If you put on the same amount of muscle mass on the same muscle using pilates or dumbbells, that muscle will look exactly the same, regardless of the exercise type.
I’ve seen articles all over the internet written by so-called gurus that claim that lifting heavy weights will give you bulky muscles. It’s simply NOT TRUE. What, then, about men? They’re the ones who spend lots of time lifting heavy, and many of them have bulky muscles, right? Well, as most men will tell you, it’s not easy for them to get muscular, and in fact, they have the right hormones to do so. Imagine, then, how much more difficult it is for women – who lack the necessary hormones to develop muscles like the Incredible Hulk – to get bulky when lifting! And for the few women you see who are what you might consider “bulky,” they likely have either trained very hard for a very long time, eaten a special diet, and even taken hormone supplements to grow muscle. In short, it wasn’t easy for them, and any woman is highly unlikely to look that way by mistake.
The truth – most of the women who feel exercise is making them “bulky” have a completely different problem. FAT. What people are missing is that when we’re talking about “long, lean muscles,” instead of focusing on the word “long,” they should focus on the word “lean,” as in, become lean, lower your body fat. THIS is what will help you slim down your appearance. And what’s the best way to lose body fat? Three main things:
- Reduce your food intake, focusing primarily on healthy whole foods
- Use resistance training to make your muscles stronger
- Do some form of cardio, such as high intensity interval training (HIIT) to burn calories and improve aerobic capacity
So the next time you hear some TV program tell you that its next show will share the best way for its audience to get “long lean muscles,” join me. Roll your eyes and change the channel. It’s marketing, pure and simple, so don’t waste your time. Go do a few squats and deadlifts instead!
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I used to work at a fitness club. The owner told me only about 30 to 40 percent of the members actually attended the gym, with aerobics like everything else it is the work you put in.