another question for you guys? Is it the same time frame for women to gain muscle mass as men and what weights should they start at and aim to work up to, to get strong definition.
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Not the easiest question to answer with a direct yes or no. Men will build muscle faster than women as they naturally have more male hormones in them to do so. Some men will build muscle quicker than others just as some women will build muscle quicker than other women; genetics play a big part in this. Also the amount of effort a person is able to put into their training, male or female, will make an enormous difference. Sometimes you think you are training hard but if pushed a bit every one can train harder, so muscle will be build quicker.
A starting weight again is so dependant on each individual, male or female. As a good rule of thumb if you can execute 15 repetitions of an exercise with good technique then the weight could be considerably heavier to do the same good form for 10 to 12 repetitions, so go for the heavier weight. Once you can get up to 15 reps with the heavier weight then up the weight again and so on.
Majority of women get tied up with the thought that they should lift light and do loads of reps to get definition; this can help with seeing the definition once the muscle is built, but it's not a place to start as you need to build the muscle to be able to define it! So lift heavy enough to be struggling with the last repetition or 2 of each set, look to do 3 to 4 sets and endeavour to put your weight up a bit each set until you feel the technique is suffering.
It's impossible to muscle too much muscle by mistake, so many ladies think they are going to wake up one morning looking too muscular, it's a long slow process and you'll have plenty of time to judge how you look along the way
Karen
