Can Women Build Muscle? A Complete Guide To Bulking For Female

Not every woman you find sweating the hell out is there for weight loss! Some are here to take those hot abs home!

Muscle building is no anymore a man’s game; even women have got their eyes on winning that strength and toned body.

However, unlike men, women have more complex bodybuilding strategies due to several reasons:

• Female anatomy makes it difficult to gain quick muscles
• Certain physiological and hormonal factors make it difficult to achieve muscles.

This raises a quick question can you build muscle as a woman?

The answer doesn’t disappoint as even after numerous hurdles, women still can crack the code of hard work that goes into building muscles.

Today, we plan a complete guide, on How A Woman Can Build Lean Muscle and enjoy being powerful with a toned body!

Can you build muscle as a woman? – Understanding the Woman Muscle Growth!

Before asking, Can Women Build Muscle it is important to know what muscle growth means?

Muscle growth for both males and females occurs when your muscles are exerted with excess stress.

The stress leads to damage to the muscular fibers that are repaired by various metabolic processes of the body.

Every time the muscles are repaired, the thickness of the fibers increases and they become stronger.

However, women don’t gain quick muscles because they don’t have those hormones that can quickly repair the fibers.

But with daily hard work and training, along with some diet, some of these hormones increase resulting in rapid recovery.

This could take time!

How Muscular Can A Woman Get Naturally?

As per the CDC, the average healthy women have a BMI of about 30 till the time she reaches adulthood which is 170 pounds of weight.

Since the female anatomy can hold only seventy pounds of muscles, they can just gain twenty pounds in their lifetime.

But that’s according to genetics.

So, when a woman completes one year of her workouts like lifting, she already gains around half of her genetic potential which is twenty pounds of muscles.

But from the next year, the muscle growth starts growing slower.

This is because initially the muscles get new stimuli and the fibers are small enough to be managed.

Eventually, the muscles fibers grow and it becomes difficult for the women’s nuclei to adapt to the growth, hence slowing down the muscle growth.

There can also be other factors that make muscle growth slower for women like hormonal changes and menstrual cycle.

But the main catch is, that initially muscle growth is like a boom but eventually it slows down.

Hence the answer to How Much Muscle Can a Woman Gain in a Month or a year depends on how much effort you put into achieving muscles.

This is because muscles can only be built when you put them under stress, and that requires:

• Lifting more weights
• Choosing the right exercises for bodybuilding
• Focus more on repetitions and rests
• Try going for HIIT routines
• Eating right

We discuss more of these as we go ahead exploring possible routines for rapid muscle building.

How To Build Muscle Fast For Females – The Workout

Many exercises help you lose weight, but the exercises that build muscles engage multiple muscle tissues and involve compound exercises.

Some of these exercises will also help you lift heavier weights.

#1. Squat with barbell

This workout mainly focuses on the lower region and helps build muscles.

The equipment that you need for the workout is either a barbell or a dumbbell.

• Start with standing in a position where your feet are shoulder-width apart. But make sure that you can balance yourself in the position.
• Keep the barbell across your chest or the dumbbells at your shoulder.
• While keeping your chest up and back straight start bending your knees as you move your hips back and down.
• Squat lower until your thighs become parallel to the ground.
• Now use your feet to reverse, and go back to the original position

If you are searching for How to Build Muscle At Home for Females without Equipment, you can try the air squat which has a similar yet different process.

#2. Deadlift

It is also a barbell activity that focuses on the legs.

• Place the barbell at an easy site from where you can pick it up when you need to.
• Stand in an upright position with the spine straight, chest up, and shoulders back and down.
• Engaging your hips, lower your knees and let the hips go lower to pick up the bar keeping your hand shoulder-width apart.
• While performing exercise make sure your spine should be straight with the chest open.
• Try pushing the floor with your feet as you target all the muscles and lift the bar.
• Balance the bar in front of your hips and complete the activity by lifting the chest.
• Reverse the motion and return to the original position.

#3. Hip Thrust

• Start with a sitting position where your shoulders should rest at the edges of an exercise bench.
• Straighten your legs in front and roll over the barbell over the hips, you can even place a pillow below the barbell.
• Keep your feet flat on the floor to soften your knees.
• Lift the barbell as you raise your hips off the ground, while doing so your neck and shoulders should move onto the bench.
• Hold the position before lowering back.

#4. Bench Press

The workout focuses on the chest muscles and is good for toning the upper body.

• Lie down flat on the bench with your chest facing upwards. Hold the barbell at a width more than the shoulder width.
• Keeping your feet flat on the floor and hips on the bench, raise the barbell.
• Now bring it back towards your chest by bending the elbows.
• As it reaches chest height, push back your feet and raise the barbell.
• Return to the starting position.

#5. Dumbell Row

• Start with a position where your feet are hip-width apart and keep a dumbbell in each of your hands in front of the thighs.
• Move your hips back and then hinge forward while your back remains flat.
• You need to start with your arms straight out with the palms facing the ground.
• Bring the elbows towards your ribs and pull the weights towards your lower abdomen.
• While lifting the weights make sure your shoulders move towards each other.
• Now go back down and start again.

#6. Dumbbell Shoulder Press

• The workout focuses on the shoulders and helps build muscles.
• You can either begin the exercise standing or sitting with a flat back and feet on the floor with the dumbbell in each hand.
• Lift the weights to shoulder height with the elbows bent.
• As you exhale take the dumbbell above your head.
• Bring the weights back to the starting position and start again.

These exercises are enough to make you grow muscles, but you can even try adding some HIIT workouts.

But other than workouts what matters is the repetitions and the number of sets.

Sets and Repetitions

Since we are lifting weights here, it’s gonna give your muscles the perfect stimulus for growth.

Hence, always try keeping your reps in the range of 6 to 12.

Thought as you reach the last rep you might start feeling breathless and exerting too much pressure to keep it going, but that’s just what paves way for Signs Of Gaining Muscle Female.

Unlike men, here we also suggest women focus on their rest between the sets because heavy lifting utilizes a lot of energy.

The Rest Phase

The rest breaks for workouts that can build muscles in females should be longer to replenish the lost energy.

This could be in a range of one to three minutes but if it’s nearer to three minutes it’s gonna be more beneficial.

According to prominent research, people who were assigned with short breaks of 1 minute had less muscle thickness and strength compared to the group with longer breaks.

Other than the rest what matters is the number of times you include these workouts.

Though you won’t be able to include all the above exercises in your weekly routine you can split up these exercises.

Planning a routine

The best way to enhance your muscle build-up is to work every muscle a couple of times.

For example, training the muscles twice or thrice a week can be more effective than including different types of exams.

Hence performing similar exercises twice to thrice a week can be beneficial.

Though splitting exercises into a weekly routine but the best way is to start by focusing on the upper body.

For example, you can go ahead with the following routine:

• Monday – exercises for upper body
• Tuesday – for lower body
• Wednesday – for rest or you can try going for cardio
• Thursday – upper body
• Friday – lower body

This routine will help target every muscle twice a week; based on this you can prepare your routine.

However, make sure that your routine has a day of leave to give your muscles enough time to repair and grow.

The next step in building muscles for females is planning the diet.

Eating everything doesn’t fit into the bodybuilding cycle, rather avoiding certain foods and adding up certain foods is what makes a bodybuilding routine.

Muscle Building Diet

Weightlifting automatically increases the need for calories in your body because the workouts require a lot of energy.

However, these calorie requirements can vary from person to person and you can calculate your calorie needs using a calorie calculator.

The calculator usually considers your age and activity intensity to produce a calorie requirement chart.

For example, according to a study average healthy woman of 35 years of age can require 2,200 calories per day for weight management.

But for muscle building, this can increase by 5 to 10% increase.

These calorie requirements can be managed by managing your macros.

#1. Proteins

Proteins are the most important nutrients you need to focus on for building muscles as they are the building blocks of muscles.

According to experts:

1.2-2.0 grams of proteins per kg of body weight is essential for bodybuilding

Eating 20 grams of protein every hour of the day can be beneficial for muscle building.

Prioritize the proteins that contain leucine amino acids as they help in the synthesis of more proteins.

Some good sources of leucine amino acids are:

• Whey
• Dairy
• Meat
• Eggs
• Soy
• White beans
• Kidney beans
• Lentils
• Peanuts

#2. Carbohydrates

The popular idea of a low-carb diet isn’t gonna help in your training for muscle gains.

You need more carbs to fuel your body for the constant workout plans you have, they can also boost muscle recovery and repair.

Some vital functions of carbs are:

• Fuelling the workouts
• Helping in better absorption of proteins
• Free up proteins for better muscle building

But not all carbs should go into the platter, only certain carbs are healthy for bodybuilding like:

• Whole grains – brown rice
• Sweet potato
• Lentils and beans
• Leafy greens and broccoli

Avoid eating processed sources of carbs like baked stuff, candies, and canned food. Etc.

#3. Fats

Fats are important for creating a balance between the other macros.

However, when it comes to bodybuilding, there isn’t a major role assigned to fats.

Experts recommend just taking 0.3 grams of fats per pound of bodyweight.

When planning the diet, focus more on calculating proteins and fats, where one should be more and the latter less.

Carbohydrates can just fill in the remaining calories requirement.

Conclusion

Can you build muscles as a female?

There is nothing that a female can’t do, and making muscles is just another feather that women have added to their caps.

Building muscles, though complex for women is not entirely impossible with dedication and hard work.

All you need to do is maintain a strict diet, and stick with a high-intensity workout routine.

That’s gonna put your muscles under a lot of stress, and the repair is just gonna make you thick and muscular.

But hold on, rests matter in terms of building muscles for females because it’s the rest phase when muscles repair and grow.

So before we leave, jot down the quick points of how to build muscles fast for females and get set go for your bodybuilding journey.

FAQs

1. How long does it take to build muscle for females?

Visible changes can take as long as three to four weeks to first appear.

But the real results are only after 12 weeks of dedicated workouts and a strict diet.

However, the results can vary from person to person depending on the workout plan and strategy.

2. Can females build muscles without steroids?

Yes, you can grow muscles naturally without steroids. But it’s not gonna be as quick as a person taking steroids.

Since they are using synthetics, no matter what exercise or diet they follow their muscles are gonna increase.

But talking about the side effects, those muscle gains usually don’t last long and are healthy.

3. How can a skinny girl gain muscles?

The best tips that a skinny girl can pick from a bodybuilding guide are:

• Go for resistance training for bulky muscle gains
• Target specific muscles but also work out the whole body
• Take good amounts of calories
• Focus on the macros
• Balance the diet with fats and some vitamins too.

4. At what age do muscles stop growing?

Usually, the muscle gains slow down by about 3% to 5%  as people turn thirty.

In the case of women, the diminishing rate could be higher but the age remains the same.

5. How many muscles can you gain in a month?

Usually, many factors can affect muscle growth among females.

But average females can gain 0.5 to 1.5 pounds in a month.