Training for lean muscles is a popular topic right now. Women are afraid of muscle mountains on their own bodies. The legs, in particular, should stay slim. The latest trend is a big round butt with long slim legs. But how is that supposed to work? Can I really train that specifically? Yes, that is possible! Of course, within the natural framework.

And what do I have to consider? 

Are there different exercises for women than for men? Can I lift weights as heavy as a man, or will I soon look like one?

Normally you get from these very mountains of muscles (regardless of whether you are a man or a woman) that you can never build such muscles in a natural way as a woman, but tastes are different and some biceps of these fitness women, some of us do consider “too male”.

 However, the heavier the weight, the more wiry the muscles become. 

For example, if I set the weight so high that I cannot do the exercise more than with 1-5 repetitions and if I leave it at 3 series, then I do not “inflate” the muscle either. In other words, he doesn’t get fat and “male”, but wiry.

It looks different if I can repeat the weight between about 5-10 times and then 4-5 series, so the muscle develops differently.

In short, the higher the weight, the fewer repetitions, and series I can do and the leaner and more wiry my muscles become.

Of course, these values ​​are rarely referenced values. Everybody and organism are different and therefore react differently.

But there are other factors as well.

In order to get lean muscles, such as with a dancer, I also have to train the type of movements differently than, for example, in normal equipment training in the gym. The exercises on the butterfly, leg press, lat pull are all 2-dimensional. That means back and forth, back and forth, up and down.

The movements in our everyday life are 3-dimensional and much more functional. If I train in this way, you can see that in my body. He gets a certain “depth”. A force from within. Especially when I also train the deep muscles such as the pelvic floor, deep abdominal muscles, and deep back muscles.

The deep muscles also protect me from injuries. The deep muscles are the muscles that are close to the skeleton, i.e. in the depth of the body. It stabilizes the joints, protects against back pain and makes ergonomic movement possible. My movements seem more targeted and my body looks powerful from the center. You may not believe it at first, but a classic dancer needs enormous strength to perform jumps and the specific positions and movements. Anyone who tries to lift their legs straight forward will notice this. This requires strength and flexibility.

If I train the large movement muscles without first training the deep muscles, I have a much greater load on the joints. Some fitness trainers or physiotherapists claim that the deep muscles are always trained anyway.

That is only partly true. This approach is not sufficient in high-performance sports, such as professional classical dance, since fine differentiation of the muscles is necessary for the highly complex movements. Even after an accident, the deep muscles can be disturbed and must first be “cleared” and controlled. You can find out more about deep muscles here (link to post office deep muscles)

What is the best workout for lean muscles?

There are various concepts for building long, lean muscles. One example is the Gyrotonic Expansion System®. This system comes from a dance and was developed by Juliu Horvath. With this system, both the deep muscles are extremely well addressed and the three-dimensionality of the body is taken into account. The movements can be moved over the entire range of movement. This also creates a stretching effect that is unfortunately often neglected during normal strength training.

Gyrotonic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE33mjnvRAc

This system is ideal for back problems. The exercises are fun and the resistance can be adjusted to any level of performance. This enables beginners as well as competitive athletes to train effectively. Also, the trend topic fascia is not neglected here, because with this training the body is trained in movement sequences instead of only in muscle function chains (which is also more functional than just training individual muscles).

Here, however, the intensity is not as high as with pure strength training with high weights

Another good alternative is Pilates, which also strengthens the deep muscles. The difference here is that Pilates does not train in three dimensions.