This morning I was writing in deadlift weights for a couple of our female members during their workout and noticed that all of them were finishing the day with at least 200lbs (a proud day for a strength coach)…

A member of our fitness center walked by and asked "isn’t lifting heavy weight like that going to bulk that girl up?" (mind you this was a hundred-and-nothing pound model to which he was referring) I didn’t want to get into the details of it with him right then, but I told him to check out the Athlon Elite Blog today… so here is the answer to that question:

NO, Absolutely not, no way, not a chance, lifting heavy weight will NOT bulk you up. In fact it’s quite the opposite… but you gotta’ do it right!

Many gym-goers looking to "tone" up are trained, or have read in Muscle and FICTION that high volume, low intensity (high reps, low weights) programs are the ideal way to tone up those muscles and burn fat in those problem areas. These people hit the fitness center, select a few machines, primarily ones that isolate those problem areas, and knock out 10 reps move along to another machine and repeat.

There are two problems with this method…

First, there is no such thing as "spot reduction." Working-out your problem areas in order to burn the fat around them is a myth and something we will get into at another time.

Second, though, there is a toning effect from training in this fashion, it is temporary, has no carry over to the "real world," and is lost as soon as you miss a day or two in the gym.

Here’s an example..

make a fist right now… now make it tighter… tighter… crush your own hand… come on SQUEEZE!!!  Notice that as you squeeze harder and harder the muscles in your forearm start shaking, and then your biceps and triceps and eventually your shoulder all kick into action. This concept is called "neurological tension". As the muscles in your forearm start to get tired your brain will start to pull from other muscle groups in order to keep that tension in your hand.

This is the key, tension; tension = tone!!!

By performing a low volume, high intensity (low rep, heavy weight) exercise you force the brain to recruit all the muscles fibers in the area and extra muscles in order to keep that tension.

So, doing these really heavy deadlifts you recruit all of your butt and leg muscles and you recruit the muscles of the abdomen, chest, shoulders, arms, and back as well to help out. The result is a total body, functional, toning-lift that lasts!  And since you only did a set of five reps you didn’t stimulate the brain to build a whole bunch more muscle tissue (i.e., "bulk-up").

Of course the key is to do it right!  Come into Athlon Elite and get a taste of one of our low volume programs and see if you can keep up with the powerful and sexy "tone" of some of our "little ladies…"