Any other women who put on muscle ridiculously easily? page 6

[magicmerl]

Maybe in addition to your apparent genetic advantage, you have other aspects of your lifestyle that differ from skinny Girl A?

I imagine that lots of high quality protein could definitely help you with muscle tone, in a good way.

[YogaBare]

Youuuuuuuu hooooooooo, Kharnath, where aaaaaaaaaare you?

[drssgchic]

TheFastCat- that was a much more polite way to say it, but I would like to just as respectfully point out that while that could be the case, it could very easily not be the case. I've been fat and I've been relatively lean with muscle and without. I don't have actual measurements to back me up on this- but let me tell you, the same clothes fit differently whether I have muscle or not. I put on enough for a distinct change in my shape. For me, that's a significant amount.

Yes, "putting on muscle" can be mis-used just like "being curvy" can be mis-used. As a woman that has the potential for both muscles and curves, it gets irksome when they get confused with flat-out fat. At the moment, I'm fat. The plan is to return to curvy, which includes putting on muscle (since that just happens to me).

[TheFastCat]

understood ladies

/salute

[happybunny]

understood ladies

/salute

Well, that was vastly more polite than Kharnath's second post in this thread. I guess you can stay, TheFastCat

[sbhikes]

There are two young women I see in the gym regularly. One has a really nice lean, lithe figure. The other has massive thighs, I mean seriously huge, and pretty big upper body muscles. All natural, just really big for a woman--for anybody really. They both lift pretty impressive weights and the one with the huge thighs is really good at bench press. She puts most men to shame. They obviously have worked hard for a very long time. Some women can put on muscle really easily. I'm not anywhere near the lady with the big thighs myself.

[sakura_girl]

Yes, I am rather bulky and put on muscle very easily. Of course, it is because of my laziness of not restricting what I eat.

I'm 5'4", 155lbs, possibly around 28-30% bf. I fit into intermediate to almost-elite on the spectrum on the strength standards provided. You could argue my gains were very fast, considering I was lifting 3x/week, sprinting in between and hiking on weekends when I was getting serious into weight lifting (squat went from 115x5 to 155x5 in 1 month)

[Leida]

Actually, I have a hypothesis that having extra body fat helps gaining muscle more easily. Gaining muscle is a very expensive process for the body, particularly for a woman, plus women need to have more body fat, and the internal workings are all wired to pad a woman up for a potential pregnancy, so the signal to grow muscles does not get initiated until the body is completely satisfied that you are well prepared to conceive and give birth to a plump newborn - which is a BF% over the athletic level (higher 20ies-lower thirties). A skinny female with large muscle is even more of a genetic abnormality probably than a skinny male with large muscle. I always chicken out before testing this hypothesis, that muscle gain becomes easier as body fat % increases because the extra fat padding becomes unbearable for me and I switch to the weight loss mode, making the main mistake beginner female BB do: cut waaay too soon. I wish I had the guts to stand my gut (yeah, that was a horrible pun) for long enough to see that shift in muscle to fat gain ration to mostly muscle during the bulking phase. So far, my ratio was always horrible, 25:75 at best. I wish there was a research at which BF% that ratio starts shifting to muscle over fat with proper stimulation. I am almost tempted to re-gear my workouts towards sheer hyperthrophy but I loath dropping heavy reps.

Anyway, ladies, well done!!!

[heatseeker]

Leida, awesome post. Really interesting theory, too. Now I want to know all about how a female bodybuilder goes about gaining muscle and then cutting fat. Not that I want to bodybuild, just that it'd be interesting to see how it's done. I know for me personally, it's nearly impossible to build muscle while cutting fat. I'm currently in fat-loss mode and my lifts have stayed even steven the entire time (no loss of strength, thankfully, but no progression). Anyway, you sound like you know a lot about this, any outside resources on this topic you could point me toward?

[Leida]

I did not find a good all-encompassing research paper connecting body fat % with the ability to build muscular mass, but I had read a few eye-opening books:

Why Women Need Fat - a great in-depth book on the biological mechanism behind the fat pattern accumulation throughout a woman's life
Lyle' McDonald's Ultimate Diet 2.0 - that's an eye-opening read about the whole fat vs muscle with some women-specific asides

I have seen insane amount of testimonies over the years about losing upper body strength and muscular development in the effort to reduce lower body fat accumulations - something I have done as well and via various methods of training and dieting. I am also familiar with 2 or 3 testimonies from the successful ladies who achieved body re-composition growing leaner and muscular (Stacie, Kaleo, Paula)

Finally, the reference to the female body builders cutting too fast came from one of many searches I was doing on the internet from the BodyBuilding website...

Gotta run, sorry, I am really interested in this topic and can chat for ages about it, while the rest yells Boo at me