Women lifting weights. Fall in love with feeling strong.

The weights floor never belonged to men

For years, the weights floor has been treated as though it belongs to men. They bench press, do pull-ups, lift heavy things and make an extraordinary amount of noise putting them down again.

Women were generally directed elsewhere. Cardio machines, classes, lighter dumbbells and exercises aimed at making particular parts of the body smaller or firmer. Even the language was different. Men trained for strength and muscle. Women trained to "tone".

There's nothing wrong with cardio, classes or a pair of light dumbbells. There's also nothing masculine about a bench press or a push-up. The barbell has never cared who picked it up.

The research doesn't support treating women as though they're less suited to getting strong. When women and men follow the same resistance-training program, studies often find similar relative muscle growth from their own starting points. Women may even make larger relative improvements in upper-body strength, especially when they're new to training.¹

That doesn't mean every woman builds the same amount of muscle, at the same speed, as every man. It means women respond extremely well to proper strength training and shouldn't be handed an easier program simply because they're women.

That last part matches what I'm seeing in real life. My female clients enjoy bench presses, rows and pulldowns. They want to improve their push-ups. They get excited when the pull-up assistance comes down or they can increase the weight.

These exercises were never manly. Men were simply encouraged to do them first.

The pleasure of being capable

There are plenty of physical reasons for women to strength train, and we'll get to those. The part that I think gets missed is how good it feels to become capable.

A push-up is simple until you can't do one. Then the first proper rep feels enormous. The same is true of lifting your own suitcase into an overhead compartment, lifting something heavy from the floor, moving furniture or opening the jar everyone else quietly gave up on.

These aren't dramatic transformations. Nobody is filming them for a before-and-after reel. They're small moments when your body makes your life easier, and each one changes the way you see yourself a little.

Research into women's experiences of exercise supports this. In one study, women ranked resistance training as the most empowering form of physical activity. The interviews behind those numbers found that the benefits extended beyond physical health, and that enjoyment and empowerment were closely connected.²

Another study followed postmenopausal women through a resistance-training program. Many began because they hoped it would help with symptoms. Over time, their motivation changed. They continued because they enjoyed training and liked how it made them feel.³

That's the part I want more women to discover. You might begin because you think you should exercise, because you want to change how you look or because somebody has told you strength training is good for you. Fine. The reason that gets you through the door doesn't have to be the reason you stay.

At some point, the feeling itself can become enough.

Let's talk about "bulky" properly

The standard answer to women who worry about becoming bulky is usually, "Don't worry, women can't build muscle like men."

While I've been guilty of using this line before to comfort those who worry, I don't like the answer. It's both patronising and not especially accurate.

Women absolutely can build muscle. Research comparing women and men suggests that the relative increase from where each person begins can be remarkably similar.¹ Telling women they can lift proper weights because they're incapable of building much muscle is a strange way to encourage them.

The honest answer is that building a substantial amount of muscle is extremely difficult. How much you build depends on how consistently and intelligently you train, how challenging your sets are, your total training volume, nutrition, recovery, genetics and time.⁴ Getting close to failure can be useful, but you don't need to drag every set into the ground.

Believe me, building muscle has been one of the main missions of my life and I still don't have as much as I'd like. Nobody becomes bulky by accident, and that's because you get feedback the entire way. Your strength changes gradually. Your clothes may fit differently. You see what's happening and decide whether you like it. Training doesn't suddenly seize control of your body and take it somewhere you never agreed to go.

"Bulky" isn't a scientific measurement anyway. It's a judgement, and one that's aimed at women far more often than men. A man adds muscle and people tell him he looks strong. A woman does the same and somebody eventually asks whether she's worried about getting too big.

Maybe she likes the muscle. She's probably worked very hard for it.

Lighter weights aren't useless, by the way. Muscle can be built across a wide range of loads when the set is genuinely challenging. But if you want to become better at lifting heavier things, at some point you need to practise lifting heavier things. There's no special "tone" setting hidden on the cable machine.

Getting stronger doesn't always mean getting bigger

Muscle size and strength aren't the same thing. Building more muscle can give you the potential to become stronger, but strength also comes from improving your technique, coordination and your nervous system's ability to use the muscle you already have.⁵

This is why someone new to training can make enormous progress in what they lift before seeing much visible change in their body. The movement becomes more familiar, the body learns to recruit the right muscles and the person becomes more confident handling the weight.

Research also shows that the training which best develops maximal strength isn't necessarily identical to the training that best develops muscle size. Heavier loads tend to maximise strength, while muscle can be built across a wider range of loads when the overall work is sufficient.⁶

Put simply, you can become considerably stronger without becoming considerably bigger.

What strength gives you

Strength training can increase muscular strength, build or preserve lean mass, improve physical function and support healthier body composition. A recent analysis covering more than 4,000 women found significant strength improvements in both premenopausal and postmenopausal women, with no statistically significant difference between the two groups.⁷

That matters because muscle isn't only there to look good. It's what allows you to get out of a chair, climb stairs, carry shopping, travel with your own luggage and keep doing those things as you get older.

Strength gives you options. The more physical capacity you have, the less of your life is limited by whether your body can manage it.

There can be a meaningful change in body composition too, especially when strength training sits alongside nutrition that matches your goal. You can build or preserve muscle while reducing body fat, which changes your shape even when your total bodyweight barely moves. Research in women consistently shows improvements in strength and lean mass, alongside more modest reductions in body-fat percentage.⁴

The scale might stay stubbornly similar while your jeans become looser and your body looks completely different. That's why weight alone is such a limited way to measure progress. Sometimes the number stays the same while almost everything you actually care about is improving.

Instead of asking only, "Do I weigh less?", you can ask, "Can I do something now that I couldn't do before?"

Menopause changes the stakes, not your potential

Menopause deserves proper attention here because the decline in oestrogen can accelerate changes in bone density, muscle mass and body composition. This isn't a reason to become cautious about using your body. It's one of the strongest reasons to train it.

Resistance training can improve strength and physical function after menopause. The evidence around bone density is more dependent on the type and intensity of training, but we have good reason to take it seriously.

In the LIFTMOR trial, postmenopausal women with low bone mass completed two supervised, thirty-minute sessions of high-intensity resistance and impact training each week for eight months. They improved lumbar-spine bone density and physical function compared with women doing a low-intensity home program.⁸

The important word there is supervised. That study isn't permission to load a heavy barbell for the first time when you have osteoporosis and hope for the best. It shows that women with low bone mass aren't automatically too fragile to train hard. With proper screening, coaching and gradual progression, they may be capable of far more than they've been led to believe.

The wider menopause evidence is encouraging, but not perfect. Reviews suggest improvements in strength, functional capacity and some aspects of body composition, while the evidence for some menopause symptoms and bone outcomes remains less certain.⁹ I'd rather say that honestly than turn strength training into another miracle cure.

It won't fix menopause. It can help you meet it with more muscle, stronger bones and greater physical capacity. That's already plenty.

Women don't need a pink program

Women aren't small men, but that doesn't mean every woman needs a complicated female-only training system.

The basic principles still work. Train consistently. Cover the major muscle groups. Use a load that's challenging for you. Recover properly. Add weight, repetitions or control as your body adapts.

Your program should be individual because you're an individual, not because every woman needs to follow the same rules about hormones.

The menstrual cycle can affect how some women feel and perform, and those experiences shouldn't be dismissed. If there are days when your energy, symptoms or recovery genuinely feel different, adjust. I do the same with any client who slept badly, had a stressful week or arrived feeling drained.

What the evidence doesn't currently support is pretending every woman should organise her entire training calendar around a universal cycle formula. Reviews have found inconsistent results, small studies and considerable variation between women.¹⁰ Listen to your own body before an infographic on Instagram.

The same applies at every life stage. The program should meet the woman standing in front of it. Her experience, goals, health, confidence and actual life matter more than a generic label.

Where to begin

Two strength sessions a week is a perfectly good place to start. It's enough to make progress, it fits into a normal life and it matches the broad recommendation to train the major muscle groups on at least two days each week.¹¹

You don't need a clever split or a six-day program. Start with a small collection of movements that cover the body. Something you push, something you pull, a squat or leg press, and a movement for the back of your legs and hips. A chest press, a row, a goblet squat and a hip thrust would do the job nicely. So would four completely different exercises covering the same basic work.

If the weights area makes you nervous, ask somebody competent to show you around it. A few coached sessions can remove months of uncertainty. Machines are also a brilliant place to begin. They aren't a lesser version of strength training, and you don't earn extra points for choosing the most intimidating equipment in the room.

Start with less and build up. Learn how the movement feels, keep the repetitions controlled and finish most early sets knowing you could probably have done another two or three with good form. When the same weight begins to feel easier, add a little more or perform another repetition.

You don't need to destroy yourself. You need to give your body a clear reason to adapt, then return often enough for it to listen.

I'd also choose one thing you'd genuinely love to be able to do. Your first proper push-up. A pull-up with less assistance. A bench press with a particular weight. Carrying your own suitcase without turning it into a full-body emergency.

The goal should mean something to you. That's what makes the work interesting.

Fall in love with strong

A lot of women will begin strength training because they want to lose weight or change how they look. I'm not going to pretend appearance doesn't matter. We all want to feel attractive, and there's nothing shallow about enjoying your own body.

I just hope the reason becomes bigger.

There's a moment I see in clients when the number they care about begins to change. The number on the scale becomes a little less important. The weight in their hands becomes more interesting. They stop asking only whether they look smaller and start asking whether they can increase the weight.

That shift is powerful. Your body stops being a thing you spend your life correcting and becomes something you're curious about.

I said in Issue 05 that a woman offering to carry my bag would be considerably sexier than a man assuming he needs to carry hers. I was only half joking.

Strong is sexy.

But more importantly, it feels incredible.