Today is PR Friday, so post weight lifted, consumed, or gained to the comments. You still have time if you are trying to rip some jeans or hoist a female friend overhead. If you hoist a male friend overhead, regardless of your gender, this is not cool (for females it is not because your male friend is not heavy enough).
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I have trained Glennis, a 34 year old gal, here at the gym for about 7 weeks now. She came here a bit underweight, and was really gung-ho about getting stronger and gaining weight — she even made the comment that some increase in bodyfat was A-okay. I put her onthe linear progression with a mission to eat much more protein.
An average girl doesn’t eat enough protein in general, especially one that is training correctly. She didn’t have any restrictions on calories or carbohydrates, I just told her to include protein in every meal, drink more milk (which she likes), and get her protein intake to be a bit above her bodyweight if she wanted to increase muscle mass (measured in grams, of course).
Glennis’ progress is not profound by any means, but it is a bit interesting in that it dispels all of the silly shit that women think is going to happen to them when they train with barbells. They think that some how they are suddenly going to get supreme genetics and “bulk up”, as if it is gonna happen over night. Also, eating more is not the same thing as getting fat. We saw the other day that Zach gained almost 80 pounds of body weight with about 60% of it as muscle, and the same thing can happen with girls, but just on a different scale. In general, girls are weak, and whatever they are interested doing will be augmented by an increase in strength. Period.
In seven weeks Glennis lost a skosh of bodyfat, gained some good muscle, and got a good deal stronger. I have the data for those of you who are interested, since it’s fashionable to call bullshit on training progress on the internet. Oh, and it’s important to note that in the sixth week of training (which was last week), Glennis was pretty sick and didn’t train at all. She probably lost some weight because of that, but I went ahead and took her bodyfat today anyway.
34 years old, 5’5″
Weight is in pounds unless otherwise noted, and all lifts were done for three sets of five (deadlift is only one set).
Body weight
128 –> 133
Net: +5
Bodyfat
22.7% –> 19.8%
Net: -2.9%
Lean Body Mass
98.9 –> 106.6
Net: +7.7
Fat Mass
29.1 –> 26.4
Net: -2.7
Squat
45 –> 95
Net: 50
Press
25 –> 57
Net: 27
Bench
45 –> 63.5
Net: 18.5
Deadlift
30 kg –> 58 kg
Net: 28 kg
As you can see, Glennis lost fat, and gained muscle to have a net increase in body weight of five pounds. Obviously she was already skinny and not fat to begin with, but this is an example of a real life scenario where a girl gained almost 8 pounds of muscle in 7 weeks. Glennis also lost bodyfat without even trying to, which means two things; A) she probably could have eaten a bit more, but I’m not scolding her, and B) it goes to show that when a girl trains PROPERLY, results are inevitable. Full body, multi-joint strengthening exercises are going to be the most useful in any training program.
This last part is for the ladies:
Glennis also developed a rump — the kind that girls want to have. I say this objectively (since I have a lady friend and Glennis’ boyfriend is a friend of mine who trains at the gym — pretty strong dude); her muscle has increased in the region. Even though 7.7 pounds of muscle may not seem like a lot, I can see definition in Glennis that previously wasn’t there (in her arms, legs, etc.). More muscle with the same or less bodyfat is what makes a girl “toned”, and this is what you happens when you get stronger.