QuestionHi! I am naturally pretty small, I'm 5'5 115 pounds and I usually never workout at all. The thing is, even though I'm thin I have no muscle tone. And every time I try to start a workout regime, doing lots of cardio, pilates, and light weights I start to bulk up. My clothes fit tighter and it makes me really uncomfortable so I stop working out. And I know I am not eating more than usual, if anything working out makes me watch what I eat. But I still get bigger! What gives? How can I stay thin but also get toned? I do not want to increase my inches or I will stop working out, which is what always happens. Is it possible that I've built muscle and havent kept at it long enough to lose the fat on top??
Any advice would be much appreciated! I want to get fit but always hate the way it makes me look. I do not like the bulky look.
(Oh and for cardio I usually do low resistance on the elliptical, and jogging/walking intervals on the treadmill on a bit of an incline. I use light weights for my arms and for the rest of my body do pilates stuff and work on an exercise ball. When I start this regime I work our 3 or 4 times a week.)
Thank you for any advice or tips on what I should be doing! :)
AnswerHi Sarah,
I'm going to start by reassuring you that you are not bulking up. Our body's physiology works so that it's actually very difficult for women to build up muscle mass and you need to meet certain criteria in order to build muscle. That criteria is that you have to take in extra calories (muscle is not made out of nothing, you need extra calories, meaning more than your body needs to function each day), and you have to be lifting in a specific way. You must be increasing the resistance you are using at each and every workout. A muscle will be stimulated to grow when we are giving it more resistance. So if you use a weight once, you are giving it stimulus to grow. Use that same weight for the same number of reps again and you are not providing it stimulus to grow. You also have to lift in a fairly low rep range. If you can do 15 reps with a weight you are providing your muscle with stimulus to increase endurance, not to grow.
Now, as to why you feel like you are bulking up. Whenever you start doing new exercise what you are actually doing to your muscles is damaging them, creating tiny tears in the muscle. You know how when you hurt yourself sometimes you will see swelling where you got hurt? That's what is most likely going on in your muscles. They got hurt (even though that's a good thing), so they are swelling. The longer you work out the less you will notice swelling. You are certainly not the only woman to start working out and think your muscles are ballooning up. That's a real common concern among women when they start working out.
On to how you can accomplish what you want to accomplish. Another very common misconception is that we can exercise in a certain way to "tone" the muscles. When we exercise the physiological responses in the muscles can be muscle growth, increase in muscle strength and power, increase in muscle flexibility, and an increase in muscle endurance. The only one of those that changes the appearance of the muscle is the increase in size. Muscles don't tighten up or tone from certain types of exercise like a lot of people think they do. Getting that toned look is done by having a decent muscle base by working on growing muscles, and then losing some of the fat that is covering them. This does not mean looking ripped. To look ripped means having an extremely low body fat. But a reduction in the fat covering the muscles does give a more firm and tight appearance.
I hope this makes sense. I would recommend doing a combination of weight training (don't be afraid of heavy weights) and cardio, with some core and flexibility stuff like pilates. Keep in mind it does take time to see results, but you will! Please feel free to ask me any more questions that you have.
Sarah
www.sarahpersonaltraining.com
