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Myths

Will lifting weights make me bulky?

No. Muscle does not arrive by accident, and lifting tends to take a little fat off rather than pile size on. What you can count on is getting stronger.

Woman performing a dumbbell row during a strength training workout at the gym.
Reckoner Written by Reckoner

Here is the myth, said out loud: pick up a heavy barbell and you will wake up looking like a bodybuilder. If that worry has kept you on the lightest dumbbells in the rack, good news. It gets the whole thing backwards.

Women build muscle perfectly well

Start with the part the myth gets half right. A 2020 meta-analysis compared men and women following the same lifting programs. Measured against where each person started, muscle growth was no different between the sexes1. Lower body strength went up by a similar amount too, and women gained more upper body strength than men did1.

So your body answers lifting as well as anybody's. That is the reason to do it. It is not the same thing as getting bulky.

Why bulky is not the default

The big difference is testosterone. From puberty on, men carry more than fifteen times the circulating testosterone women do, and testosterone tracks muscle mass and strength: more of it, more of both2. That gap accounts for most of the difference in muscle and strength between men and women2.

Put those together. Women gain at a similar rate relative to where they start, from a smaller starting point and without that hormone gap working for them. A heavily muscled physique is a long project somebody chooses, trains for and eats for. It is not a side effect of three sessions a week.

What lifting does to body fat

The change you are more likely to see is less fat. A 2022 meta-analysis pooled 58 studies of full body resistance training against no exercise. Lifting lowered body fat percentage by about one and a half points, reduced fat mass, and cut visceral fat, the fat packed around your organs3. Women and men responded alike3.

A point and a half is modest, and it comes on its own, with nobody counting a calorie. Add the strength you build and the usual result is a body that looks a little leaner and feels a lot more capable.

And if you do want more muscle?

Then you can have it, slowly, by training hard for a long time and eating for it. You are in charge of that dial, which is the opposite of the myth. How Reckoner adds weight explains how your loads move from week to week, and Strength training for beginners is the place to start if the barbell is new.

Lift the heavy thing. Bulky is a project, never an accident.

Sources

  1. Roberts BM, Nuckols G, Krieger JW, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2020. Sex Differences in Resistance Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis a pre registered meta-analysis of men and women on the same programs: no difference in relative muscle growth or lower body strength gains, and a larger relative upper body strength gain in women
  2. Handelsman DJ, Hirschberg AL, Bermon S, Endocrine Reviews, 2018. Circulating Testosterone as the Hormonal Basis of Sex Differences in Athletic Performance men's circulating testosterone exceeds fifteen times women's from puberty on, with a dose response relationship to muscle mass and strength that largely accounts for the sex difference. Published in 2018 and over five years old; kept because it is the standard review of that hormonal gap
  3. Wewege MA, Desai I, Honey C, and others, Sports Medicine, 2022. The Effect of Resistance Training in Healthy Adults on Body Fat Percentage, Fat Mass and Visceral Fat: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis a meta-analysis of 58 studies: full body resistance training reduced body fat percentage by 1.46 points, fat mass and visceral fat against no exercise, and sex was not a moderator
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