By PJ Glassey, CSCS  

If you are a woman, it simply isn’t possible to “bulk up” with two 20 minute sessions per week. It’s just not enough time and you don’t have the hormones necessary for it anyway. Testosterone is the main hormone responsible for muscle mass and girth increase[i]. Men have this in abundance so it’s easier for them. Some men are bulky and strong without even lifting weights because they have such high levels, but that gift usually comes at the expense of hair loss-another effect of high testosterone.

Women have about the same testosterone levels as a 10 year old boy, so “bulking” is obviously not a possibility[ii]. Even women who want to bulk cannot do so without the aid of drugs, steroids, excessive supplementation, and hours per day of heavy conventional weight lifting

Women who do spend hours working out and lifting weights without the drugs and steroids end up looking like world current world fitness champion Suzie Curry pictured here to the right. When Sharmon spoke with her in Vegas after her 2^nd consecutive world championship victory, she told her that her workouts were a “full time job”. Exercise is her occupation.  Suzie lifts weights more than 20 hours a week and trains with cardio another 10-15 hours on top of that! As you can see in her picture to the left with Sharmon, all this exercise has not made her a giant bulky woman. She stands 5’ 2”, weighs 110 lbs. and has a 24 inch waist. Her muscle definition is obvious but her arms measure only 10.5 inches in circumference. You can also hopefully understand that if she can’t bulk up with great genetics and 30+ hours of exercise a week, no X Gym member can on just 40 minutes a week.

Every woman who has ever come to us feeling as though they were “bulking up” was also dealing with excess weight they needed to lose. They mistakenly assumed their clothes were getting tighter because of muscle increase. Women who gain weight at the X Gym are doing so because their food intake is increasing (whether it be conscious or not) at a higher rate than their activity is

All exercise burns fat and should make you lighter and leaner[iii]. Working out at the X Gym will not make you fatter or heavier! If you are gaining weight or your clothes are getting tighter, your eating habits need to be addressed. The X Gym protocols are specifically designed to improve strength without bulk or weight gain[iv]. The constant variation in exercises and protocols encourages renewing muscle innervation improvements but cuts short the time and repetition necessary for hypertrophy and effectively skips this phase. This is the whole purpose of our system.

I have had bodybuilders come to me on occasion to try to put on more mass with the X Gym protocols and have turned them away because it’s simply not possible. They need the hypertrophy phase our protocols avoid. To achieve this they need more time and longer durations with the same routine to take advantage of the hypertrophy process. I tell them I can cut their workout time down from 8 hours a day to 3, but 20 minutes, twice a week is just not enough for them.

When I was trying to bulk up, (see my before and after pictures) my scale weight went up only 3 pounds in 7 months but my measurements didn’t.  I traded fat for muscle. My arms and chest looked bigger because of definition improvement, but the girth measurements were the same. My testosterone levels are right in the middle of the normal range for males. I have enough to grow a beard, but not so much that I am balding.

If you are a woman who you feels like you’re “bulking up” then your testosterone levels would have to be much higher than an average male’s and unless you’re growing hair on your palms and could sing bass for the Oakridge boys, that’s not the issue.

It’s easier to blame weight gain on an external factor than to make the necessary changes to a nutrition program. The question I ask women who are gaining weight at the X Gym is, “do you think exercise is fattening?” They of course answer “no.” My next question is, “then what in your life is fattening?” If you are gaining weight, or feeling like you are bulking, ask yourself the same question because it is certainly not due to muscle size increase.

I have also talked with women who feel they have bulked up in the past and are afraid of it happening again. Again, in every case, each individual was dealing with a weight issue at the time and misinterpreted their spot-bulking as muscle when it was really fat tissue. Not all women store fat in the same places. Some gain in the arms and shoulders before the hips and thighs and attribute it to muscle bulk. Others gain in the upper back and neck and feel their “traps are bulking up”. In my 15 years as a personal trainer, I have yet to hear a complaint from a lean woman who feels she’s bulking up, but have heard the complaint from dozens of women who have excess weight they are trying to lose.

The last woman I consulted with was eating a certain food item that was contributing and extra 50 grams of carbs and 30 grams of fat each day without her realizing it because she had read the label wrong. As soon as she cut it out of her diet, she lost weight at a rate of about 2 lbs. a week! Another woman was doing most of the things right except water consumption. She was chronically dehydrated without knowing it. As soon as she got up to her required intake, she lost the weight and also cured her daily headaches! If you can’t figure out what is fattening in your life, please sit down with your trainer or schedule a time with Sharmon or PJ so we can get to the bottom of it. It may even be a habit or practice that you are completely unaware of that is the problem!