Lean and Mean with Your Personalized Workout
Fitness fanatics who start a weight lifting workout often ask their personal trainers one important question: “Will working out bulk me up?” The answer is always the same: “Do you want it to?” When you go at it alone, achieving your desired goals can be a matter of ‘hit and miss’. Whether or not you build bigger muscles depends on your workout routine and your nutritional intake, and that is where a personal trainer, who knows exactly how to hit every milestone on your wish list, can help out.
What do Women Want?
The fear of bulking up excessively is falsely marketed as a ‘woman’s issue’. In fact, many men - including runners, cyclists and swimmers - may wish to use weights to achieve a lean, ‘marked’ look or obtain greater strength. Some simply wish to reshape their body - for instance building wider shoulders to create more proportion with respect to their hips. Others wish to have stronger looking thighs or calves, to balance out a larger build in their shoulders and arms; still others want the appearance of a smaller waist; this means building good shoulders and back muscles, to build more angle and ‘curve’.
Lifting Weights does not Necessarily Build Bulk
The myth that lifting weights will make you big and bulky still plagues many fitness forums and publications. The idea behind lifting is to create tiny tears in the muscle fibers; as these tears are repaired, the muscle grows slightly in size. The key to looking lean actually involves losing fat, since muscle tissue is denser, so that lifting weights in a normal workout will usually leave you with a more ripped (but not necessarily bulkier) look. To build big muscles the way weightlifters do, your personal trainer will give you a very specific workout which will involve working out more days and  lifting heavier weights. They will also put you on a ‘bulking’ diet which involves specific steps such as consuming around 30% of your calories from lean protein sources, and foods which give you the energy you need to complete the toughest workouts - including rolled oats, healthy carbs and foods containing healthy essential fats - such as cold pressed extra virgin olive oil and avocado, which is high in monounsaturated fats, thus preventing fat from settling in your ab region.
You will find that the nutritional knowledge your personal trainer shares with you is some of the most important information you will ever have, because it will change your relationship with food and set you on a course that will ensure you keep obesity, heart disease and diabetes at bay, by eating a sensible diet that provides you with the vitamins, nutrients and micronutrients your body needs to perform at optimal level.
If you like the lean, ripped look, then you may be surprised to learn how easy it is to achieve. Bulking up is a much more challenging aim - it involves a very strict nutritional plan and workout regime. Regardless of your goal, you need never feel insecure about the strategy you are taking, when you have a personal trainer who will fill you in on everything you need to know regarding workouts and nutrition alike and give you the motivation you need to keep reaching higher.