Will Personal Training Make You Bulky?
“I’m not sure I want to work with you. You’re really muscular, and I don’t want to get bulky.” I hear this sometimes from women who are thinking about training with me. I always tell them that it’s totally fine with me. Plus, you can’t build my kind of muscle by accident. It’s actually harder to build muscle than it is to lose weight!
When you train with me, you’re achieving your goals, not mine. Here are a few more thoughts:
1. It’s really, really difficult to build muscle.
Before I get into how hard it is to build muscle, I want to point out one thing. When you’re dieting and the number on the scale does not budge or shows a small increase, it’s common to say to ourselves, “Well, you’ve got to account for muscle mass increases from all this working out I’m doing. Muscle weighs more than fat.” Yes, muscle weighs more than fat, but it’s unlikely that you’re building muscle while simultaneously cutting calories. In fact, most people lose muscle mass along with their fat, which is why I recommend that my weight loss clients eat a high protein diet, in order to minimize the loss of muscle.
What is it that makes muscle so hard to gain, and relatively easy to lose? Our bodies are adapted for energy conservation, and muscle takes a lot of energy to build and maintain. Our bodies would rather put our calories into storage (fat) so we have calories to spare in times of food shortage.
That said, you have to have everything (workouts, diet, rest days) dialed in just so in order to gain enough muscle mass to look “bulky.” It actually took me three years to get where I am today, and that’s with an incredibly intentional diet and exercise regimen. The average person doing cardio, lifting moderate weights three times a week, and eating 85% on point is not going to come close to the physique of a bodybuilder.
2. I personalize your training program to meet your goals.
If you don’t want to look like me, I won’t train you like I train myself. We’ll adapt your program to fit your goals, which can even change over time as you discover who you are and the role that fitness plays in your life.
I have a client who came to me saying she wanted to focus on strength and building muscle. Along the way she fell in love with long distance running. No problem! We switched up her program to focus on strengthening the muscles she would need to run more efficiently and without injury. That means we started working on her glutes, core, and overall posture.
If you’re a new mama, maybe your goal is to get rid of some belly fat. Maybe you’re older and need help with a bad back or arthritis pain. Whatever your personal goals, I have the knowledge and experience to create a fitness program that will get you there efficiently and without making you bulky--unless you want that of course!
The first step in personal training with me is always the free initial consultation. This gives me a chance to evaluate your current fitness levels and also talk to you about what you want to achieve. I can then make recommendations for how we structure your personal training, and I can also point you to resources that may help. You have a voice and ultimate control over what you accomplish.