The Muscle Building Guide for Women

Do you want to build muscle, tone up, and achieve that lean, feminine look? If that’s you, good. By the end of this guide, you’ll know exactly how to go about doing it, and don’t forget to check out my training program to get you started.

There are 3 principles that must be followed in order to get the most out of your muscle building efforts. We’ll cover those in full below, and address some common questions and concerns that come up for many women.

Muscle Building For Women Principal #1: Structured Weight Training And Progressive Overload

Resistance training revolves around a single idea: progression, which is evident by increases in strength over time. The common name for this is strength training, but training for strength explicitly can differ from training for aesthetic improvements or even improvements in endurance.

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Bill Starr (MadCow) 5×5 Intermediate Routine

Something was brought to my attention a few weeks ago.  A reader sent a quick email to notify me of some broken links they’d found.  In past articles when discussing training, I’ve referenced and linked to a very popular 5×5 training program often referred to as the MadCow 5×5.  It’s an intermediate program by Bill Starr that focuses on weekly linear progress and is very well suited for the experienced trainee who’s gotten much stronger but struggling to make consistent strength gains well past their newbie phase.

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Eat More Sammiches – The Muscle Building Guide for Skinny Guys Part I

Alright, I did some searching online, trying to find a really good guide for the skinny guys interested in building muscle.  While I found some decent stuff, most of it was pseudo-intellectual bs, making things more complicated than they needed to be.  I even found a few articles on getting abs for a skinny guy.  Since when has a skinny dude ever had trouble getting abs?  They sport a six-pack all the time, hence the adjective skinny.

Throughout the next week or so, I want to leave all of you skinny guys with no questions whatsoever when it comes to building a sizeable frame, gaining strength and adding some quality weight to that skeleton of yours.

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The Former Fat Boy Syndrome

I must admit I am a FFB (Former Fat Boy).  I am willing to bet many of the guys reading this were FFB’s.  As a FFB I know we tend to think our metabolisms are subpar or we can’t build muscle efficiently due to our endomorphic proportions.  This is what’s known as the FFBS (former fat boy syndrome).  I say this is bullhonkey (nice attempt at swearing I know).  The sad truth is being a former fat boy may even be worse on the psyche than starting out as a skinny bastard (as Joe DeFranco would say).  My goal today is to reach out to all the FFB’s and offer some encouragement, hope and a swift kick in the ass.

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JC Deen is a nationally published fitness coach and writer from Nashville, TN. Currently living in the blistering Northeast. Follow me on X/Twitter