See, women can do it too!
Women typically have a paranoid view of barbell training in that they think it will make them “bulky” or “big”. This is a typical misconception that forgets that women don’t produce the same levels of testosterone that men do. Furthermore, “bulky” is a meaningless subjective term that is relative to all of the underweight women scattered around television and magazines.
Women can and should barbell train. For the most part they adapt in the same way that males do, albeit slower. And to be honest, most girls, regardless of body composition, can stand to gain 10 to 20 pounds of muscle (the same way that most guys need to gain 30 to 50 pounds of muscle). It’s important to note that women will not achieve the status of 70’s Big (since that would be scary thing, indeed), but being stronger with more muscle mass improves the “toned” look that so many of them aim for.
In any case, even with all of these sterotypes and misconceptions, there are women who barbell train successfully. We have a few here at WFAC:
Shelley has squatted 180x5x3, but needs to eat more
Prior to breaking some ribs, Melissa deadlifted an easy 225x5
Follow the jump for more on Doug Young.