Building Muscle for Females

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Permalink Reply by Chuck Bluestein on August 2, 2013 at 1:35pm

Before puberty, your ability to build muscle was as good as any boy. But hormones change after puberty. So it is harder for a woman to build muscle than a man. It was easier for my mother since she was normally high in testosterone. Actually say that you take on 100 pounds of extra fat tomorrow. It will not help you to burn more calories since fat does not burn calories.

 

But muscle burns more calories. So you need to be even more concerned about getting enough calories when bodybuilding. Bodybuilding causes the body to burn an immense amount of calories. The swimmer, Michael Phelps needed to consume 12,000 calories a day so he does not lose weight. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2177613/Michael-Phelps-12...

 

As far as protein you cannot ad 2 ounces of muscle to your body everyday. That would be 46 pounds of extra muscle a year. So adding 2 ounces of protein a day to your diet is not needed. To get more testosterone, you can sunbathe. Arnold Schwarzenegger did a lot of sunbathing.

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Permalink Reply by Bella V. on August 8, 2013 at 6:20am

Arnold Schwarzenegger did a lot of sunbathing

Arnold did alot of steriods as well.  I don't think he raised his testosterone by being out in the sun.

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Permalink Reply by Mel on August 16, 2013 at 4:16am

:)) Word.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Davis on May 5, 2014 at 5:08pm

Is sunbathing code for going to the beach after injecting testosterone?
Arnolds dosages would have increased his testosterone to the point where his testes would have stopped producing their own testosterone (basically any bodybuilder style dose will do this), so vitamin d would not have had an effect.

If you can find a vegan vitamin D supplement, it might be a good idea for winter.

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Permalink Reply by Justin Morgan on August 6, 2013 at 7:05am

I went from 175 to 200 ibs in a year while following 80/10/10, and within a year I had a 230 pound bench press for 5 reps, 415 dead lift for 1 rep, and a 300 pound squat for 1 rep, and they've continued to go up since then. 

Meat eaters are not getting better results than that.  And judging from your post the fact that you didn't talk about your lifts, or strength strongly (numbers) indicates that what you are doing in terms of lifting will take you a very long time to reach your goals.  jehina Malik and Erin Moubray have been lifting for years. Full body strength routines done 3-4 times/week will build your muscles quicker.  Mark Rippetoe wrote a great book for weight lifters called "starting strength".  A web-site called "stronglifts.com" uses basically the same program. 

There are lifts that are effective in building muscle quickly, they are the squat, bench press, overhead press, rows (of the ground), dead lift, and pull ups (all of those done with a bar bell, except pull ups).  If you want to add in accessory work (arms, calfs, abs etc.) afterward for weak points that's fine, but until you've been lifting for a couple years every body part is a weak point, so isolation movements by themselves are wasting your time. 

I have a youtube channel detailing my results from day 1 for the last 14 months. 

http://www.youtube.com/user/RawVegaCaliBB

There may come a day when consuming more protein may be beneficial for you, but you probably aren't able to push enough weight right now for that to make a big enough difference (because you've only been lifting for 3 months). 

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Permalink Reply by Alexandra R. on August 12, 2013 at 5:31am

Definitely impressive! And thanks for the body training advice, I'll be sure to work out as you suggested. :)

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Permalink Reply by Justin Morgan on August 16, 2013 at 1:40pm

In a couple years if you stay consistent in your goals young girls will be coming to 30BAD trying to get advice on how they can look like Alexandra R.
You got this!

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Permalink Reply by Justin Morgan on August 16, 2013 at 1:35pm

I consume about 10% calories from protein on a fruit based diet (not fruit/vegetable exclusive though). I've had to consume a great deal of cooked vegan food to afford the caloric intake that I generally consume. But no, I don't eat a ton of protein or use protein type supplements. I don't expect to add more than 1/2 pound to 1 pound/month of muscle. That would require an additional 700 grams of protein spread out over 30 days, or about 20-25 grams of protein per day above normal needs, easily obtained by consuming more food in general. As you grow closer to your genetic potential the number of additional protein should theoretically decrease because you ant able to build muscle as quickly.

I avoid lifting to failure, but I do usually push up to about 95%+ and occasionally I misjudge that and fail on a lift. I used to aim to add 5 pounds each lifting session to each lift. If I am not able to increase a lift after attempting it on 3 separate occasions I drop down to about 80% of that weight and start increasing the weights again and in a couple weeks I am ideally able to push through (that what's usually called a deload).

I am now following an intermediate program called madcow 5x5. Up until I got my squat close to 300 for reps (and those are below parallel squats, hip joint well below the knee joint). i would squat 3xs per week and add 5 pounds each time (15pounds). Now I still squat 3xs/week, but Wednesday is a light day to practice form, and Friday I add 5pounds and shoot for a set of 3 to get used to the weight, Monday then is the day I take the increased weight for a full 5 reps, so I'm only adding 5 pounds/ week. And the other lifts I do less often. For all lifts I do ramping sets where I add 15-20 ibs per set until I hit my current 5 rep max. As a beginner/novice lifter I actually did 5 sets of my 5 rep max, then after deloading a few times, 3x5, and finally after a few more deloads 1x5 (all with ramping sets though of course). And that's my journey so far in a nut shell. Hope that wasn't too much.

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Permalink Reply by PK on August 7, 2013 at 8:16am

@Alexandra,

Sometimes female physiology also responds well to toning exercises verses weight lifting alone.  Try belly dancing, yoga, and or martial arts for cross training.  

Also, believe it or not, taking 1-2 days off a week for rest and repairs can do wonders for the body.  

Track your daily food intake into a site like cronometer.com to track protein.  Not only is protein important, but what kind of protein and amino acids you are consuming.  Lettuce greens and nuts and seeds are high in phenylalanine a body building protein popular in that community.  You can google more info on this.  

Keep protein intake at about 60-90 grams a day.  Going over 90 grams a day can be counter productive and or our bodies will not use it anyways.  This can cause acidic conditions in the body, urine, and or cause problems in the genitourinary tract.  

30BaD FADs: Benefits of Lettuce Greens - 30 Bananas a Day!

30BaD FADs: Starchy Foods vs Fruit n Lettuce - 30 Bananas a Day!

You might find more tips, tricks, and ideas from some of our other 30BaD discussions and groups:

Spring Into Action! Log your training here :)  Posted by:  ♥ AimeeLovesYou

811 Gladiators  Posted by Mikey  Lovely six pack photos here!

Raw Yogis

The Runners

Your Body Is Your Gym

Good luck and Peace, PK

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Permalink Reply by Alexandra R. on August 12, 2013 at 5:29am

Okay.. how would I get 60-90 grams of protein on this lifestyle?? I average 30-45 grams a day. Thanks for the advice though, PK :)

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Permalink Reply by PK on August 12, 2013 at 7:23am

@Alexandra,

My apologies and my bad on my protein statement as I did not convey my meaning clearly.  My meaning was to discourage overdoing it on protein consumption to avoid acid conditions in the body.  

45-60 gr of protein a day is perfectly acceptable and healthy on any diet.  

As you work out more, you will eat more calories, and this automatically leads to more protein consumption.  

Lettuce greens are like nature's own body building supplement.  They are not only high in protein, but many vitamins and minerals.  For example, without vitamin C, our bodies cannot assimilate and use other nutrients such as protein itself.  So go for 2-3 heads of lettuce a day and you can read the blogpost I mentioned above.  

Nuts and seeds are a great way to boost protein and minerals and some vitamins.  Again, as your calorie consumption increase, so too does your allotment of fat and protein calories, so you could be eating 1-3 oz of nuts or seeds a day.  

As I mentioned above, proteins are actually amino acids.  The amino acid preferred by some bodybuilders is actually phenylalanine and you can google that.  I dont have time to look up my references, but I vaguely remember the recommendation being between 500-2000 mg.  

Phenylalanine also acts as a natural pain reliever and mood booster thus reliever post workout pains and stiffness!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylalanine

I have found nutritiondata.com to be a great source for tracking amino acids in foods:

http://nutritiondata.self.com/

And here you can see the data for raw cashews with an oz coming in with 266 mg of phenylalanine...

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3095/2

One head of raw romaine lettuce has 407 mg.  

So you can see within 1-2 oz of nuts and 2+ heads of lettuce, plus filling in other caloric needs with fruity calories, ones protein needs are met, as well as phenylalanine goals too!

Peace, PK

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Permalink Reply by Fruity Fitness on August 12, 2013 at 9:21am

Hi PK! I am one of thos crazy people who overconsumed protein while training for a photoshoot. I was consuming over 175g a day while NOT EATING fruits and other foods supposedly frowned upon. Needless to say, i ended up with lots of issues. My urinary tract/bladder now burns anytime my meal is too acidic. How long might it take to recover? I know each person is different. Ths happened a year ago then my naturopath put me on high fat/protein diet after that. Made me worse. Lots worse. I abandoned his protocol when i found 811. 4 1/2 months 811 now. I never knew this could happen on high protein diet. I was so healthy and passed as 20-something in age until this damage. I am 41 and have lost that youthfulness.

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