Does Lifting Weights Make You Big and Bulky?

This issue has been causing confusion for as long as I can remember and while people are becoming more educated about resistance training, there are still misconceptions about how lifting weights affects your body.

There is no question that lifting weights can increase muscle size and the sport of bodybuilding has certainly left images in people's minds of over muscled individuals with physiques that many find unappealing. Since people often associate lifting weights with bodybuilding, it becomes natural to assume that lifting weights makes you big and bulky.

I admit that lifting weights can make you big and bulky, but it certainly doesn't have to. Many people who lift weights never come close to being considered big or bulky. Most of the time, people who are incredibly muscular only get that way as a result of very high quantities (volume) of training, genetic predisposition to large muscles, a nutritional program designed for muscle growth, and possibly drugs, such as anabolic steroids.

Unfortunately, people who are unfamiliar with lifting weights or other forms of resistance training typically don't realize that muscle growth is only one small part of what you can accomplish by lifting weights. It is very common for people, to be so afraid of getting big or bulky that they choose to avoid lifting weights altogether.

I believe that much of the confusion over the effects of lifting weights essentially comes down to not being familiar with program design or understanding that different program designs lead to very different results.

Of course, you should not be expected to understand all the nuances program design, as that is a job for qualified fitness professionals. On the other hand, some general knowledge of program design is very useful for clearing up misconceptions such as lifting weights will cause you to become big and bulky.

Many people do lift weights to get bigger muscles, but I would say the majority of people lift weights for other reasons. For example, many athletes lift weights to improve their strength, power, endurance, and other attributes to improve performance, yet a lot of them actually want to minimize increases in muscle size.

In sports that involve weight classes (e.g. boxing) or sports centered on manipulating body movements in space (e.g. gymnastics), people who have more strength/power per pound of bodyweight have a distinct advantage over their competitors.

It is possible to increase strength, power, and other attributes without significant increases in muscle size, but you need to follow the right type of training program. Incorporating heavy weights with low reps, fast movement speeds with low to moderate weight, and plyometric exercises involving fast changes in movement direction all contribute to developing a stronger and more powerful body without large increases in muscle size.

However, even if you don't use training techniques designed to minimize muscle growth, you still probably won't become too big and bulky by lifting weights. The types of training programs that result in big muscles involve performing many sets of exercises for the same muscle groups with fairly short rest between sets.

The strategy is basically to completely exhaust a particular area or muscle group and create a significant amount of micro trauma, which will then be repaired and become a little bigger and more resistant to damage than before.

This type of training is very demanding, with exercisers continually working on new ways to challenge and exhaust their muscles in order to stimulate further damage and greater growth during the repair/rebuilding process. In all honesty, most people will not want to put their body through the amount of discomfort required to perform this style of training for any length of time.

There is a common belief that it is easy to get big and bulky by lifting weights, but it really does take a lot of time, effort, and in most cases a program specifically designed to accomplish that goal.

Therefore, when it comes to the issue of whether or not lifting weights makes you big and bulky, I would say that it can, but from a practical standpoint, it is something that can easily be avoided. Saying lifting weights makes you big and bulky is like saying jogging makes you a marathon runner.

Many people jog, but only a small percentage of joggers run marathons. Jogging by itself does not create a marathon runner and you need to run specified distances to build your body up to the point where you can run marathons, just as you need to lift weights in a certain way to create big muscles.

I understand how people can get the impression that lifting weights makes you big and bulky, but it is troubling at the same time. The thing that bothers me most about this misconception is that lifting weights offers such a wide variety of incredible benefits to your body that it's a shame so many people think of it as something that just makes you big and bulky. Lifting weights can dramatically improve almost anyone's quality of life and it really should be a part of every health and fitness program.

If you are someone who has been avoiding lifting weights because you are afraid it will make you big and bulky, then I would strongly advise you to try lifting weights or at least perform some other form of resistance training, such as body weight exercises (push-ups, squats, etc.) or resistance band (cable) exercises.

Of course, if you are unfamiliar with these types of training, then it is very important to have someone teach you proper exercise technique and ideally some basic program design information, so you can create the right program for your goals and get the most out of your workouts.

Source:

14 years of experience and education in health and fitness