If you want a lean body, with visible muscle tone, you have to build muscle. How do you do this? Through strength training. But more specifically, through hypertrophy. Hypertrophy actually means the enlargement of an organ or it’s cells, so we need to discuss muscular hypertrophy and how it happens.
First let me tell you about the kind of muscle fibers we all have in our bodies.
Type I – These are also known as slow oxidative fibers. They are recruited first in activity and contain low glycogen levels, using aerobic glycolysis for Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) or in other words, they don’t require much to be energized. They also have a high oxidative capacity, due to the many capillaries and mitochondria that they contain so they are going to help you through your endurance activities like walking or running.
Type IIa – These are known as fast oxidative fibers and are recruited second into activity. Similar to Type I, they have a high myoglobin content and many capillaries and mitochondria, but, instead of low glycogen stores, their glycogen content is moderate, causing them to be moderately fatigue resistant. They have fast contractile speeds therefore making them best suited for activities that use both the anaerobic and aerobic glycolysis energy systems. These are great for sprinting.
Type IIb – These are known as fast glycolytic fibers and are the last to be recruited during activity. They do not use oxygen as fuel but instead use glycogen as fuel, and despite having high glycogen stores, they fatigue quickly. This coupled with their powerful contractile ability and fast Myosin ATPase activity make them best suited for short-term intense or powerful movements, such as used in weight lifting.
Next, it’s important to understand that we all have all three types of these muscle fibers, but the more we train one the recruited, the more we will depend on that type of muscle. But that Type IIb muscle fiber is what we really want to focus on since we are talking about resistance training.
Second, we have to talk about HOW to train our muscles for growth or hypertrophy. According to all kinds of scientific research, the BEST method to stimulate muscle growth is through resistance training. Here are a few notes on that..
The best lifts you can do are the compound exercises and this blog will explain why that is.
The amount of volume you do is important. Lots of research shows that it’s the time under tension that is key to building muscle. Any exercise/ weight you can do more than 12 reps of will build muscular endurance. This is great for training for an event where you may need to do many sets of 20 front squats for example and a great way to train your core to be strong for you. Any exercise that you can only do 1 – 5 reps of because the weight is so heavy is great for building strength and power. This is what a powerlifter or olympic weightlifter does in their training. But for hypertrophy, to build size, you want to be between 8 – 12 reps, which is moderate intensity. You want to be between 3 – 6 sets of 8 – 12 reps, and you want to use the most weight you can possibly use with good form, for best results.
It also should be mentioned that you must take into consideration that our body will adapt to what you are doing, so you must progressively overload the muscles. What does that mean? Basically, you have to increase the time under tension either by changing the tempo of the lifts, changing the rest periods, increasing the weight used and/ or increasing the number of reps.
Lastly, we have to talk about what you need, equipment-wise, to make this happen and your programming. You don’t want to go into this all willy-nilly. You don’t want to do lunges and curls one day, then the next day do rows, crunches and skull crushers, just because. There needs to be some kind of method to this. When creating a workout plans for women program, the first thing to really consider is how many days and how much time you have to train because if you are following a program that requires you to train six days a week but you only have four days to train, that won’t work.
So let’s say you have four days you can get to the gym each week, that is four sessions. You can think of muscle groups as: back, chest, shoulders, biceps, triceps, core, glutes, legs, for example. Some people break it down differently.. this is just an example. So perhaps something that could work for you is:
Day 1 – back/ biceps
Day 2 – legs/ shoulders
Day 3 – chest/ triceps
Day 4 – glutes/ core
You can either use antagonist muscle groups that oppose each other like back and chest that oppose each other in exercises or muscle groups that support each other like back and biceps.
As for what you need, that also depends on what you have access to. I would recommend finding a daily workout plan that will work with what you have. So if you have access to a small gym with some dumbbells and resistance bands, find a program that includes those things. Or if you have access to machines, barbells, pulley systems, etc then you could follow a program that includes everything. Free weights like barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells are best because you utilize more of your muscles as you must stabilize the weights as opposed to machines, but there are opportunities to use machines that are actually helpful.
I will always recommend you follow the program of a fitness professional like a personal trainer or someone who has studied physiology and exercise rather than creating your own program for safety purposes, among many other reasons.
And you are in luck because I’ve been a personal trainer since 2012 and I have a tried and true program called the Lean Body Workout Plans for women that you can download and start here: https://kyrawilliamsfitness.com/leanbodyworkoutprogram/
This program has everything you need from the workout routines, to video demos of each exercises and coaching support via email and Facebook group as well.
Your Coach,
Kyra