In another highly-informative and highly-entertaining social media post, elitefts columnist Alexander Cortes took it upon himself to debunk myths about the bodies of female fitness models.
The Reality of a Female "Fitness Model Body"
This is real goddamn talk time, because I keep seeing this "anyone can look like a fitness model" bullshit, and its tiresome.
Looking like a fitness model IS NOT A MODERATE approach. Anyone marketing it as being "easy" or "anyone can do it" is completely fucking full of it.
Biological fact, women's bodyfat percentage is double that of mens. 20% for women is about akin to 10% for a man.
The odds that a woman "naturally" walks around with sub 20% bodyfat is going to be a genetic outlier. Its no different than the men that are crazy lean by way of good genetics.
(One can split hairs and argue over-under a few percentage points, but realistically, the above generally holds true)
-->That said, the requirements for "fitness model" body are much akin to what is required for men
-Resistance training 5-6 days a week with fairly high volume
-Regular cardio, and often more than that of men in fact
-Strict dieting with control of calories and eating for training performance
-Sleep, recovery, and the requirements from training upwards of most every day of the week
-Consistent training over YEARS. NOT MONTHS, YEARS
-Those woman that have the rockin curves and delt caps, they didnt get that way training for 6 months following a shitty magazine pull out routine.
>>>>That dancer body that so many women covet? Thats takes double digit hours every week IF youre dancing.
Doing it through lifting, you are looking at straight bodybuilder/powerbuilder style hypertrophy training. A lot of it
-Women can build muscle just the same as men, but their start points are often lower. So youve got plenty of ground to make up, and getting even
The women that i have seen that walk around at 16% or whatever the hell, almost all of them have trained like bodybuilders 5-6x days weekly, doing cardio at least 3x weekly, and they hardcore chicken and tupperware and food scale diet
Or they are powerlifters and squat and press and pull like mofos week in and week out at high percentages. And diet. And still do some cardio (diet is unavoidable)
-The women who just "look" like that with a more moderate approach, all have been lifelong athletes, all would be considered to have "good" genetics for muscle and leanness, and all were healthy eaters that were intuitively calorie and performance conscious.
-That squat booty is built with ass busting work, and if you want abs, hunger inducing dieting.
I say all this not be discouraging, but that pitch of it being "easy" is damnable. Its not, and its going to take discipline and habitual effort over TIME before it acclimates to seeming "moderate" or normal
Extreme and moderate are scales of perspective based on time,
but reality > expectation, ALWAYS
Expecting an extreme end-of-scale outcome from moderate scale effort is never going to happen.
Anyone telling you otherwise is lying, plain and simple. That 6 week transformation ideal is likely to take 24 weeks (probably longer), and its going to take lifetime of Process to maintain it and improve it
For more of Alexander's insight, you can check out his column on elitefts.com and follow his biweekly articles. The truth might be hard, but he thinks you need to hear it.
Header image via flickr, Wojtek Pruchnick