Why Females SHOULD Be Gaining
What you are getting yourself in for
Word Count - 1300 Words
Reading Time - 5 - 8 Mins
What will you take away? - Why Female Weight Gain Is Super Cool.
Now I hate the term ‘bulking’. I think it’s rubbish & will almost will put females off the process of gaining weight.
‘Massing’, ‘Gaining Phases’ or ‘Improvement Seasons’ are my preferred terms in this situation. One of the main reasons that Females veer away from weight gain, in my experience, is a huge issue with mindset.
I’ll get regular topics raised on consult calls with female clients that go a bit like this…
“ I’d really like to just gain a bit more muscle & get a bit leaner also.”
Or….. we’ll begin coaching and 1 week into a gaining phase I’ll get a message….
“Aj, my weight was up 1lb this morning, I feel like I’m eating too much and gaining fat really fast!”
Before we get into how to potentially FIX the mindset issues, let’s just cover why I think Females should be gaining. Why Females should be gaining in the first place…
1 - Next time you diet, you will HAVE more muscle.
Half of the time, females WANT more lean muscle mass, and they also WANT to look bigger and be stronger… that’s the goal. If they are competitive athletes, they want to look better the next time they get on stage, as no-one wants to turn up looking the same. To do this, we must have some element of body-weight gain over time, that is required to put you in the most optimal environment for growth. 2 - You’ll gain strength.
Strength gain is something that is SUPER clear when setting goals, you either get stronger or you don’t. You don’t spend all day looking at photos of you from last month to realise that you’ve added 20kg to your Squat.
Gaining strength is one of many ways to progressively overload your training, which is going to put you in a great position for gaining lean muscle tissue. Finally, gaining strength is something that will keep you motivated to keep getting after it in the gym. There is nothing more demotivating (in my opinion) than turning up for sessions and either regressing, or lifting the same weights every damn session.
Trying to gain strength whilst constantly swinging from a moderate surplus, to a deficit, to maintenance is pretty much impossible and a giant waste of your time. 3 - You’ll actually be able to EAT.
The more lean muscle mass you have, the more calories you can handle, this is one of the many reasons why some bigger female bodybuilders can handle serious calorie intakes when dieting, which can be really mentally rewarding as opposed to dieting on very ‘poverty macros’.
The more time you spend investing sensibly (not getting too fat) the BETTER and more efficient your next diet will be and the less time you’ll spend spinning your wheels.
Furthermore, the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you will burn by simply doing absolutely nothing, which is surely an absolute deal breaker for gaining. 4 - You’ll be able to take incredible glute selfies.
Seriously, the extra fullness & a little bit of fat gain can actually make for some seriously impressive Glute Shots, mentally this can be very rewarding and push you forwards to keep the gaining process going, which is definitely relative to your mindset, if glute fullness and pumps can have a positive effect on that, take millions of them, and whack them on IG.