One of the biggest fears of many women is to build massive muscles through strength training and thus achieve a masculine stature. As a woman, you want to appear feminine, delicate and tight, not masculine, massive and bulky. It is precisely for this reason that many women like to avoid intensive strength training in the fitness club. Those who do dare to do it are often suggested to only train with little weight and a lot of repetitions so that they don't build up mountains of muscle.
Before you as a woman think about “man-like” muscles, you have to take a little look behind the scenes and look at the differences between men and women. What is certain is that men and women are naturally equally capable of building muscle. The big difference is hidden in extent and is mainly due to the predominant sex hormones and their effect on muscle building.
Testosterone dominates in men (10-20x more than women). This hormone has the property of promoting anabolic processes in muscle metabolism. It is the reason why men inherently have significantly more muscle mass than women. The sex hormone estrogen, which is dominant in women, is characterized by far less anabolic properties and thus limits the potential for building muscle. What you often see in the bodybuilding scene can in many cases be traced back to the use of anabolic steroids.
A recent study at the University of California also demonstrated that Strength training In men, the messenger substance myostatin, which inhibits muscle building in humans, is deactivated. No inhibition could be demonstrated in women, which means that muscle growth in women is permanently inhibited.
Conclusion:
Under normal conditions, the woman's system does not allow for muscle mass - regardless of whether she is training in the high repetition range with little weight or with few repetitions and heavy weights. With a high number of repetitions you train your strength endurance a little more, with a slightly lower number you train your maximum strength - this is the only difference.
