Is Female Body Building Right For You? :

Whilst many of us dream of the perfect body what lengths would you go to in your quest to achieve one? Would you go as far as becoming a female bodybuilder?

For an increasing number of women the answer is yes!

While body building has long been considered a mans sport, more and more females are pumping iron in the bid to achieve a fantastic muscular physique.

However, most of the information on the net is for men and as we all know males and females are completely different in every way including their muscle and fat development.

So how am I the person to be helping you in your muscle gaining fat burning journey into female body building? … well, although I’ve been there and done it before, I am certainly no expert, so I will be talking to female body builders, trainers, dietitians and following one women through her journey to compete for the first time (but more about her later).

My name is Kerry Fitzgibbon and I competed in body sculpting, a division of female body building, and placed second in New Zealand in my first and only year of competing.

Although I loved the competition and my newly muscly body, I only ever competed once, as I had food issues that stopped me from continuing, basically I didn’t like the inevitable weight gain after competition ( I will be covering body and food issues in future posts).
So how do you know if female body building is right for you?

As you can imagine female body building takes time, effort, dedication and discipline to do well. In fact it takes us girls a lot of time to build muscle, sometimes even months before results can be measured, because females don’t have testosterone like men and unlucky for us, we also put on fat easily.. Pretty unfair when you think of it!!!

In order to build the muscle and strip fat female body builders need to weight lift at least four to five days a week and some form of cardio pretty much everyday… for example either walking or working out on a cross trainer, and of course follow a very strict diet during their 12-week pre-competition phase.

The average body fat percentage for adult females is 22% to 25%, to compete you want to ideally be under 10% (which is considered unhealthy for any long periods).

So one of the major factors you need to consider before embarking on a competitive body building journey is … Can you cope with losing all the fat, looking absolutely fabulous.. super bikini jaw dropping hot for competition, then inevitably putting on weight to have a “normal” healthy body?

If you have ever had an eating disorder in the past I highly recommend you think twice before taking on competitive female body building.. it doesn’t mean you can’t take the sport up.. it just means that maybe you shouldn’t go to the competition level extremes or at least without being closely monitored and with help from a personal trainer who knows your full history.

Beginners also need to take into consideration their physical health before they begin so that they know what their body is capable of. This is so important because overall general health will dictate how often you can workout without risk of injury or fatigue that can lead to you quitting

Female body building is rising in popularity as more and more women have begun taking a real interest in the way their bodies look. As a sport, female body building is also a very competitive industry. When you undertake a fitness program, you should give it everything you have, but be sure you do it right. You don’t want to risk injury. What you do want is a great body you can be proud of.