Is there a secret to building a sexy female body?
A lot of trainers would say no. A lot of trainers will say that you
don’t need to differentiate between men and women when designing
training programs. They’ll tell you that the physiological needs are
nearly identical and only the hormones are different; thankfully, I’m not like most trainers.
In fact, I disagree, and I believe that in a few specific ways, men and women need to train quite differently.
Firstly, the idea that only the hormones are different is
flawed, fundamentally. I’ve written about this a lot, so I don’t want to
rehash, but the fact is that hormones change the game significantly.
The hormonal differences between men and women account for more than
90% of the differences in the way men and women actually respond to
training and nutrition.
So, while I agree that on just about any level that there are a great
deal of similarities in the way you can approach training, I recognize
that there are some things that need to be taken into account.
Secondly, I don’t design programs for clients based on some
arbitrary assessment of what they are theoretically capable of
responding to. Rather, I approach program design based only on the client’s goals.
Forgive me for generalizing, but men and women typically have very
different goals. Even when a man and a woman have the same goal—fat
loss, for example—they will still have different micro-goals within the
context of that macro-goal. Keeping those micro goals in mind is of the
utmost importance…especially if you want to keep the client happy.
Having more than decade of experience training people of all shapes
and sizes, and with the majority of them being women, I’ve come up with
the following list for helping women get better results and achieving
that sexy look that most of my clients are after.
Submitted, for your consideration, my top six rules for helping sculpt a sexy female body.
1) Ditch the Lame Warm Up
In most cases, your warm up should bear a fair similarity to your
actual training. Given that we’ve pretty much established that slow
paced workouts—be they cardio or strength training—are essentially
useless, why would you think to warm up that way?
And yet, more often than not, you see women getting ready for
fast-paced, intense workouts warming up with a lame 10 minute walk on
the treadmill, or an even lamer series of stretches. Both time wasted that could be spent getting you to your goals.
Instead, it is much more effective to warm up much in the same fashion you’ll workout: fast. I always have my clients warm up with full body exercises and dynamic bodyweight circuits.
Skipping rope and performing calisthenic exercises like jumping jacks work the entire body, and prepare you neurologically
for the workout to come. This will allow you to get more out of each
exercise, as your body will be primed perform as a unit—this is especially true if you do a lot of full body movements in your training.
In addition to that, dynamic warm-ups also get your heart rate up over a shorter period of time, and allow you to burn more calories and get into the groove faster.
All of which is to say that whether your goal is to drop some fat or
tone up your muscles, there is literally nothing that a lame slow-go
workout can do for you that can’t be more effectively achieved with a
fast one.
2) Don’t Be Afraid to Lift Heavy
Given that I maintain that men and women should train differently for
differing goals, it stands to reason that I assert there should be certain aspects of training that carry over when goals are similar. One goal that men and women have in common is that we all want a firm, toned, sexy look. One of the best ways to get that look, for men or women, is with heavy weight.
How heavy and how often will depend on the the goal–I have a lot of
women focused purely on gaining strength that almost always train using
close to maximal weight. I’ve also got a number of athletes who use one
heavy lift in every training sessions.
For my clients focused on fat loss, neither of those are necessary;
however, I insist that all my female clients spend at least two days per month dedicated purely to heavy lifting
(75% or more of 1RM), regardless of their goal. Not only is it great
for fat loss, but lifting heavy will help you look better once you’ve
lost the fat.
You see, training in a way that utilizes heavy loads is the fastest and most efficient way to increase both neurogenic and myogenic muscle tone; that is, it’s the best way to give you firm, toned look—even when you’re just standing there.
I’m fairly certain my general readership is beyond the whole “I don’t
want to get bulky—won’t lifting heavy make me bigger?” dilemma. It
pains me to even have to bring it up. But, chances are we’ve got some
newbz reading, and for their sake I like to cover my bases and be
thorough, so I’ll just lay it all out.
Gaining muscle is a result of a few factors: training methods,
dietary considerations, and–as alluded to above–hormonal environment.
In terms of diet, it is exceedingly difficult—not to mention
unlikely—to gain significant muscle mass without purposefully eating a
Caloric excess. This is why athletes and bodybuilders eat more than
their daily energy needs: so that excess will be used for the building
of lean body mass.
Regarding hormones, women will always have a harder time putting on
mass than men because of certain sex hormones; mainly testosterone. As a
woman, your testosterone levels are generally too low to make getting
“too big” a concern in a short period of time (although in certain
situations, some muscle groups can grow faster than others; more on that
below).
So, if you do notice yourself putting on more muscle than
you’d like, just lower your caloric intake, and tone down the training
volume a bit.
Speaking of training, that brings us back to my main point. Heavy lifting requires low reps; if you don’t do a greater number of sets, the total workout volume drops dramatically, and you are left without much stimulus for muscle gain.
And THAT is exactly what we want: to keep the weight and
volume in the right balance to allow us to reap the benefits of heavy
training without putting on mass.
To that end, I recommend that women spend at least two days per month doing some heavy training. To get you started, here’s a heavy full body circuit:
3 sets of 5 reps for each of the following:
- dumbbell squat
- dumbbell push press
- Inverted row (add weight if necessary–or do pull ups!)
- Alternating reverse lunges
- Plank (hold for as long as possible)
To determine the correct weight, just pick a weight you can lift
roughly 5-6 times. If you can get all 3 sets for 5 reps, increase the
weight next workout.
Again, I said at least two days per month. This is the
minimum. Speaking generally, I have my female clients training heavy at
least once per week; further, there are a lot of women who train almost exclusively with near maximal weights (3-5 reps). So, again: don’t be afraid to lift heavy!
3) Sit Down And Sprint?
Over the past several years, we’ve tried to break people of the
notion that if they want to lose stomach fat, they need to do stomach
exercises. Now, we’ve got a pretty well established belief in the
fitness industry that you can’t “spot” reduce fat…so if
you are trying to reduce the size of your thighs and hips, your fat
loss will come from all over and you just have to let your body
determine how much visible reduction occurs.
What if that assessment is only partially true? I contend it very well might be.
A few years back, I attended a seminar led by Dr. John Berardi, who
is an expert in the field of sports nutrition. He is also a
world-renowned trainer who works with some of the most elite athletes
around. During the seminar, Berardi made a remark about some Olympic
athletes he was training; he had an interesting finding regarding fat loss.
As it turned out, when he had these athletes (all women) do their high intensity sprint workouts on a stationary bicycle, there was a “disproportionately high” amount of fat loss in the lower body.
JB and I discussed this, and although he had a lot of data to back this
up, no studies had been done. Instead, we just had an interesting
factoid.
That was about 8 years ago, and in that time I have had a lot of
opportunity to work stationary bike sprints into a good number of my
programs; generally for women who found that losing lower body fat was a
hardship. And you know what? IT WORKS.
But why? What makes the stationary bike so special?
To be honest, I have no freakin’ clue. None at
all…at least, none that I can base on anything but broscience and black
magic. I will say, however, that it seems to me that doing timed sprints
that you get more efficient and can perform with more resistance
overtime…seems A LOT like a “cardio version” of my type of density-based training, which as we all know has been very effective for dropping lower body fat (mainly, because it helps with hormonal optimization).
All I know is, it works—although I should point out that from what
I’ve seen, there is some danger of losing some muscle mass on the leg
alongside the fat. For most, this is an acceptable risk, and for the
rest, an unexpected benefit.
After all, I’ve had the preponderance of my female clients say, “I have too much fat in my lower body.” I have never
had one say, “Gee, Roman, I wish I had a lot more muscle in my legs,
and I don’t want to do anything that runs this risk of compromising my
lower body development, even if it’ll help me lose a lot of fat on my
thighs.”
Just doesn’t happen. If anything, I have had a number of female
former athletes ask how they can reduce leg muscle mass—and this works
for that, as well.
Again, I don’t have a study to back me up on the exact way
it works, but, again, I have 8 years of my own experience with clients
to back up the fact that it DOES work. If are struggling with this area
of your body and you have access to the equipment, you MUST give this a
try.
4) Less is More. Or is it More is Less? Or Maybe is be More IN Less. Oh Whatever, Just Go Faster
As I’ve touched on so far, there are a lot of factors we can make
alterations to in order to meet the goal of sculpting a sexy female
form.
Variables such as training frequency, set and rep schemes, and the aforementioned volume and load (weight) are the most commonly manipulated facets of training. However, one of the variables you don’t hear much about is also lends itself to making some of the best progress.
I’m talking about training density. With regard to training,
density can be described as the amount of work you do in a given time
period. Density is actually one of the easiest variables to manipulate
for progress: simply do more in less time.
Doing more work in less time has a number of incredible benefits:
increasing the rate of fat loss, aerobic and anaerobic training, and an
increase in work capacity. Over time, increasing density will make you
stronger, leaner, fitter, and MORE capable of performing. That has
carryover to nearly every other type of training and will have
implications for accelerated progress down the line.
One of simplest ways to increase density
is to shorten your rest periods. If you normally rest 45 seconds
between sets, try cutting it down to 35 or less. Over the course of a
45-minute workout, that adds up and you’ll notice you are feeling a
completely different stimulus.
Of course, my favorite way to manipulate density is to structure your
sets for TIME rather than REPS. If you are going to squat, rather than
just do 15 reps, perform squats for 30 seconds and see how many reps you
get. On your next set, try to beat your previous number of reps; maintain
good form, but try to in increase speed. Of course, eventually you’ll
max out, and can improve by either increasing the time, or the weight.
These methods are great so fat loss, but because of the increased
work capacity, often also help to increase neurogenic and myogenic
muscle tone: so, increasing your workout density can increase your body density.
You’ll get leaner, firmer, and sexier—faster.
5) Focus on your Assets
Well, we made it this far without me getting to graphic. Ooops. Look,
I’m a butt guy, I like butts. That’s my thing. I like when a girl has a
nice, well-formed, athletic booty. I’m not sure if that’s me objectifying women, or just being honest (or both).
Either way, this is an article intended to help women build sexy bodies, and to me, nothing
is sexier than a good backside. Don’t agree? Well, write your own
article then. This is my show, so I say we’re talking about butts.
Or training them, at least.
You already know two of the best exercises for your glutes: the squat
and the lunge. Here is a quick way to make them more effective (at
least for your butt) When it to comes to squatting for your booty, go wide.
Wide stance squats with your toes pointed out place a greater emphasis
on the glutes; make sure to focus on flexing and squeezing as you
perform the movement. I’m not going to bother writing a joke here—it’s
too easy.
For lunges, go back, not forward. While I don’t want
to encourage too much favoritism or fuel the fires that scare women
away from training, it must be said that there are certain exercises
that put TOO much emphasis on some muscles. For women who want shapely
legs and a nice butt without building up lots of quad muscle, it’s often
a good idea to use reverse lunges in place of forward lunges.
Forward lunges place a lot more emphasis on the section of the
quadriceps at the base of the knee–most specifically the vastus
medialus—especially eccentric emphasis. Think about it: when you lunge
forward, your lead leg has to “catch” your entire body weight and
stop/absorb your momentum, and the muscles around the knee will do the
majority of the work.
Conversely, when you lunge backwards, your glutes get a lot more work
(on both the moving and non-moving leg) and the section of the quads
that run up and down the length of the femur (rectus femoris) get a bit
more work.
Overall, you’ll develop strong, shapely legs without having to
“worry” too much about over developing the quads. Of course, I should
mention that most of the time this is majoring in minutia, but there are
those who do put on muscle in the thighs a bit more easily so this is
relevant to some. (On a side note, those people would do well with the
cycle sprints mentioned above!)
6) Be a Venus
When it comes to being physically attractive to the opposite sex,
it’s important to understand that certain body dimensions are visually
important, from an evolutionary perspective. In fact, these
things are so indelibly burned into the collective consciousness of our
species that our definition of what makes a “good body” are heavily
influenced by them.
Our progenitors subconsciously credited desirable traits like
maternity, productivity, and fertility to corresponding physical
attributes. Certain physical traits are what we call mating qualifiers,
which means that from an evolutionary perspective, these traits are
attractive to members of the opposite sex because of what they imply.
Just as a man with broad shoulders instantly projects an image of
strength in our subconscious, a woman with a narrow waist and shapely
hips makes us (specifically men) more attracted to that woman because
she is built in a way that implies fertility.
The cool thing about this is that even though our perception of what
is sexy changes as a society, because of the way these qualifiers work
in terms of attraction is based on unchanging ratios, they are still
relevant.
For example, by today’s standards, Marilyn Monroe might be considered
on the “heavy” side—but we still see her appeal—and can find comparable
beauty in modern female celebrities.
The reason for that is the golden ratio,
which in this case is going to refer to hip-to-shoulder comparisons and
hip-to-waist comparisons. With women, we want the athletic shoulders to
taper into a small waist, and then bloom out into sexy hips. This is
something called the Venus Factor.
Just as Marilyn was “perfect” at 36-24-36, our current standard of
more lithe sexuality a number like 34.5-23-34.5 would be more
attractive. The commonality behind those numbers is the ratio of the
waist to the hip and shoulders (1:1.5).
There’s obviously a lot more to it, but that’s a good primer. If you
truly want to be sexy—in the truly evolutionary and procreative sense of
the word—train in a way that helps you develop a body that falls within
those ratios.
This means spending more time focusing on building strong, sexy
shoulders using exercises like the push press and lateral raise, as well
as worrying less about making your butt smaller and focusing on the
strength-building, multi-joint movements that will improve its shape.
Are you ready to build your ideal body?
I’ve got you covered. Just enter your name and email below and I’ll send you my guide, The 5 Principles to Radical Fat Loss, absolutely free.I’m going to straight up give you the recipe for extreme sexiness.
I’m going to straight up give you the recipe for extreme sexiness.