RFT: Iron in Heels is a monthly series on tamilyouth.ca that seeks to educate, inspire, and empower Tamil youth to improve their fitness and well-being by developing an active lifestyle.
Written By: Sulaksana Sabaratnam
As a female, there are many initial fears about strength training. Most of these fears are associated directly with losing ones’ feminine appearing and taking on a more bulky and masculine look. These fears tend to place limitations on the kinds of exercises females perform and as a result, the importance of building overall strength suffers. One specific major muscle group that is almost always disregarded by females, tends to be chest muscles or your pectorals.
Why is it that females stray from working out their chest muscles when weight training?
The most common reason behind this fear is the idea that they will lose breast tissue and have them replaced with manly chest muscles or pecs!
So, is this a FACT or merely just a MYTH?
It is, indeed, a MYTH.
Image retrieved from:
http://www.eatandexercises.net
In reality, working out ones’ chest muscles does not mean your breasts will be replaced with massive pecs. We must always keep in mind that when performing physical activity of any sort, the goal tends to always revolve around getting rid of unwanted fat mass. As mentioned in my previous articles, there is no way of targeting specific areas of the body when losing fat tissue; everyone’s body works in different ways and eliminates fat tissue in some places faster than others. We must also keep in mind that the more muscle mass one has, your metabolic rate increases as well and in turn, increases the rate of fat loss. Having said that, breasts are comprised of adipose tissue (fat) and when losing fat, the possibility of losing some breast tissue exists. Targeting chest muscles with exercises like bench press and chest flies, will only help develop these underlying muscles that create the illusion of more “perkier” or “firmer” breasts BUT they do not replace breast tissue.
Now that we have that cleared up, let’s go get in some bench!
Bottom line – your pectorals are one of your major muscle groups, which are activated by push movements. It is important to evenly strengthen them to counter the development of your back muscles. So, remove any association behind chest exercises and losing breast tissue because, the reason behind any possible loss of breast tissue is due to OVERALL loss of fat mass brought on due to physical activity as a whole.
Stay Tuned for my next piece on “IIFYM: If It Fits Your What?”
You can also contact me on Instagram at @sulaksanas and be sure to follow for some daily gym motivation!
Sulaksana Sabaratnam is a certified personal trainer and weight-loss consultant. She is currently working towards her nutrition manager (NM) certification. With her passion in fitness and her drive to challenge the limits of her body, Sulaksana also enjoys educating her male and female clientele who benefit from both, her physical weight training and complementary nutrition knowledge. Through her articles, she hopes to help women feel comfortable in the gym atmosphere, invite women to take on strength training to strengthen and accentuate the feminine curves and encourage them to ask questions freely. Follow her via Instagram at @sulaksanas for daily inspiration!
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