The Myth of the Female Bulk

Lifting weights makes women bulky. Women shouldn’t lift heavy weights. Women will hurt themselves lifting weights. Women should avoid training their upper body because they’ll look like a man.

You’ve probably heard these claims from some people in the fitness world that seemed reputable at the time, from friends and family members throughout the years, even strangers at the gym,

Here’s some good news though: they couldn’t be more wrong!

If this myth still haunts you, consider this analogy: Thinking you will become bulky, or look like a man because you lift weights is like thinking you will accidentally become a professional Nascar driver just because you drive a car every day.

Lifting weights 3 times a week over the course of 3+ years will help women gain lean muscle (think of your ideal ‘toned’ body), increase bone density, and prevent age related disease, not make you look “bulky,” “like a man,” or like a professional bodybuilder.

Female bodybuilders exert every ounce of energy, time, and focus into building their body- it is their job and it is impossible to achieve their body composition by accident.

Luckily this narrative is slowly dying as more and more women lift weights and notice that they achieve the body composition they always wanted, look even more feminine, feel more confident, more energetic, and more capable in their daily life.

Women have been portraying the possibility of being truly strong and capable through strength training since the early 1900’s where they presented their physical abilities through impressive feats of strength in acrobatics and wrestling.

The best part about this era in fitness was that these women were first known by the public for their dedication to training, their strength and skill set, rather than their size.

Unfortunately these strong women were short lived as the era of female strength was never really able to get off the ground before society quickly adopted this myth of strength training making women magically “bulky” and shifted the entire narrative around women and strength training.

So where and how did things go wrong?

Misinformation started to spread as fact about strength training being only for men, and society started encouraging women to stick to aerobic exercise only (you know, that scene with Jamie Lee Curtis and a room filled with spandex?)

It’s possible that certain industries and health professionals contributed to this myth, or even the rise of social media and influencers preaching that women do not need to lift weights to achieve their goals.

This stigma stuck, for a while into the late 20th century and even 21st century.

Even in 2023, there are still people who believe lifting weights makes women ‘bulky’. It begins to become a problem when people who believe in this myth are in a position of power, spreading their opinion as if it is fact, and misleading the masses with misinformation.

This is why at Pursuit, we sift through the mounds of misinformation to provide you with fact and science-based research when tailoring a training program according to YOU!

We make sure you are aware of the science and facts around strength training and its true effects on the female population so that misinformation doesn’t get in the way of achieving your goals!

So women, keep on being badass and lifting heavy shit as we continue to shift this narrative for the betterment of society.