What I’m about to tell you is going to make me very unpopular*. (Never mind that I spent so much time being unpopular in high school that it is pretty much my natural state of being.) You know that old weight lifting trope “Don’t fear the heavy weights; women don’t have enough testosterone to get bulky.” ? I don’t buy it. (Shun! Shun the non-believer! Shuuuunnnnnn!) While I do absolutely believe that heaving some iron is great for men, women and everyone in between, I also think that women can put on more muscle than we’d like. Sure we’ll never be this guy:
But we can get bulkier than we like to be. As material evidence, I kindly submit to the jury my favorite little black dress. Every girl has one – it’s the dress that you can accessorize with anything and makes you look like a million bucks even when you’re post-popcorn and pre-period bloated. My particular LBD is a retro Audrey Hepburn inspired black sheath dress that nips in at just the right spot on my waist and has a neckline so flattering that half the time I don’t even bother with the jewelry. I’d post a pic of me wearing it so we could all ooh and ahh together except: IT WON’T ZIP UP ANYMORE. The trouble spot? Not my usual problem areas – it slips right up over my hips and thighs. It catches on my lats. Of all the stupid spots to have a dress not fit, I cannot think of a less desirable place to gain inches than across my bat-wing territory. For those of you unfamiliar with bodybuilding parlance, your latissimus dorsi are your armpit muscles. Running down the sides of your back, they’re often called the swimmer’s muscle. You can see why:
Continuing on with bodybuilding lore, there are three types of people in this world: Ectomorphs or people who are naturally thin and have a hard time putting on muscle (party like an emo rock star! Or a catwalk model!), Mesomorphs or people who are well balanced with fat and muscle (also known as the type everyone wishes they were, what up Mr. and Miss Universe?), and the poor Endomorphs or people who put on muscle easily but put on fat even more easily (Holla all you rom-com sidekicks!). (Funny aside: the site linked above lists “stalkiness” as an attribute of endomorphs. That might be the awesomest abuse of the English language I’ve seen since my ex-boyfriend e-mailed me that he’d gotten a job as a “night stalker” at the local grocery store. Sadly that turned out to be more true than any of us ever anticipated but hey it kept the local police on their toes. Although in our culture I’m not sure which is the more offensive adjective: stocky or stalky. Perhaps one would rather be stalky.) ANYHOW. I’m pretty darn sure I’m not an ectomorph but whichever the remaining two I am, I don’t like it. And not just because it makes my armpits crazy hard to shave.
I want the bat muscles gone and my dress back. Operation: Lose Muscle.
Gym Buddy Megan – who also hates her bat muscles so see, I’m not the only girl with a dominant vanity gene – and I pinpointed the emergence of our rogue muscles on the P90X Experiment. All those variations on the pull-up had us working our lats like never before. And August’s Swimming Experiment didn’t help either. So what to do?
According to several very authoritative (i.e. Yahoo’s ask-a-question) websites, these are my options listed in order of best to worst:
1. Get the body part set in a cast. This was universally the method of choice for muscle atrophy, after all have you ever seen someone get a cast off their leg? Clearly this works. Also clear: if I think being unable to zip up my dress is embarrassing, I will not be able to handle the public mockery that would ensue if I showed up with armpit casts. Out.
2. Cut your calories to below 800 a day so that your body will go into starvation mode and burn muscle for fuel. Downside: You might die. Also out.
3. Stop working that muscle. Now we’re getting closer. I already use this strategy with my calves. What? I love my calves exactly the way they are and toe raises are tedious. The difference between calves and lats however is that the latter is connected to other very important muscles like, oh, your whole upper body. Kinda out, for reasons of practicality.
4. Lift lighter and increase your reps. Whoooaaa… isn’t this what all the experts tell you not to do? Which means it might just work. Not great, but probably my best option.
What kind of -morph are you? Do you have a muscle you wish would go away? Do you avoid working it to keep it from getting bigger? Or is your philosophy that a girl can never have too much metabolism-firing muscle? Any advice for me? Should I just get the dress altered and be done with it?
*There has been some confusion in the comments I wanted to address. When I wrote this post I meant it to be a tongue-in-cheek light-hearted look-what-us-girls-go-through-for-fashion humorous kind of post but apparently I shouldn’t be blogging late at night ’cause clearly it didn’t come across that way. Just to be clear: I’m not going to do any of the above. While it’s true I don’t love my lats, I do love having muscle and I’m not going to quit weight lifting. Nor was this meant to be a judgment on any woman who is trying to get bigger muscles. To any of you whom I have offended, I am very sorry! To all of you whom I confused, sorry again. To everyone else-Thanks for allowing me to make mistakes sometimes:)
Haha you crack me uppp.
Heheh, I am an ectomorph and I have never heart about such thing as unwanted muscles =)
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I like your article I hit 50 last year and am going through menopause and lately I have put over 4 inches on my arms . Oh yes all muscle I don’t work out but am very active I think my arms got big because this is the 1st time in several years I have split my wood my grown boys do it. I also put a lot on my calves. I had just lost a lot of weight now I look like a short stocky and bulgy and not in a good way. I can hardly put on any of my long sleeve shirts. and when I do I can’t hardly bend my arms.
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Feel your pain sister! My lats are bustin’ out my shirt as I type! Losing 4st, I grieved for my boobs, but enjoyed being able to finally wear shirts/dresses that fitted my chest AND my waist, instead of looking like a tent from the bust down. However, I’m now back to square one as my fricken’ lats are ripping stitches all over the show. I’ve just moved to isolation exercises for my shoulders/arms, rhoms/traps and lower back and calisthenics to keep functional strength, all whilst cutting. Hoping they’ll scale down a little!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about Marth. Ʀegards
A million times this. I am one of those freakish women who also get big. Have you ever had your bone mass assayed? Mine are, in the words of my doc, “like horse bones.” So yeah. My body is like a giant gravitational field that sucks fat, muscle, small children, unattended pets, etc into its orbit.
Thank you for letting me know I’m not alone, and that I can stick to my lighter weight cable pulldowns.
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Haha I am a guy and believe it or not I have the same issue except for me not only is it my Lats but my triceps as well! Most people think I’m crazy when I tell them Im trying to lose muscle!! I want to look proportionate not bulky looking. Bulk is for competitive muscle freaks that are fine not having a neck! I just want a nice toned physique and I’m pretty sure that seems to be what women are more attracted to and what I personally think looks better!
But, like you said earlier it’s hard to get rid of lats because literally almost every upper body excercise works them!
I am in the same boat right now!! After losing a bunch of wt through strict diet reduction (& toward the end, running), i reached a plateau, even though I was eating 900 cal/day (long term!). I started CrossFit, 7 months ago to build muscle & boost metabolism. I also increased my daily protein (I’m vegetarian) from 26g to 120g!!! Oh my gosh… How this plan backfired! everyone assured me I wouldn’t get bulky..and how they were wrong! I have 16″ calves that won’t fit in boots, quads too big for my jeans & traps that look like they are enveloping my head (no more spaghetti straps for this Amazonian!). I love CrossFit & I love lifting heavy…but I resigned from this lifestyle 1 wk ago. I am back to low protein, I only CrossFit 3x/wk instead of 5, & I only lift 50% of my 1RM. I am considering quitting all together. I am just not happy with what my body has turned into. Although my husband loves it & the girls at the gym are always telling me they are envious. But I miss my pretty clothes and how my old body (err…previous) looked in them. Thanks for sharing this. I feel like I am not alone …
I completely agree! I definitely brainwashed myself that lifting heavy will give me the body I want. But now, after a year and a half and going from slim and fit to muscular, I am now full of regret. I have huge traps and lats and want my legs to be long and lean before. The whole goal of lifting heavy was to build a butt, which I did, but now I’m completely re-working my workouts to do low impact cardio and light weights. I want to lean out again! I miss my girly figure!
I have this problem too! But especially with my shoulders and arms. I just look so bulky and although i’m glad to have some sort of athletic prowess, i also just want to look like a petite girly girl in a dress. Not possible right now! Thanks for a great post, I will continue on my quest to reduce my man shoulders.
Hi! I used to be very thin and wanted to gain muscle. I busted my ass in the gym and finally got an ass! But it came long with big quads to match. Over my whole body, I ended up putting on 14 lbs of muscle and realized I was actually more confident when I was thinner! Nice to hear someone else who also wants to shed their muscles. It’s all about personal preference!
i have huge quad muscles.. and i figure skate… problem is i’m not allowed to quit… any idea how i can lose those?
I am very slim but i am developing this muscles,i dont like them because i dont feel comfortable with sleevless dresses
I am very slim but i am developing this muscles,i dont like them because i dont feel comfortable with sleevless dresses.
i hope this will be useful.. as i had quit from being athletes.. there are such muscle that will make me seem bigger. this is because.. my tight is bigger but my arm is 1/4 of it.. it seem weird.. sometimes.. it makes me feel worse because it hard to search for trousers that is suit with my height.. i hope this will be useful.. or else i will not continue reading your blog
I want to get rid of my muscle
i want to get red of my calves and my thighs……. any suggestions??
I went for my wedding dress fitting today and although I have put weight on over christmas, the dress fitted over my stodgy belly beautifully, however the lace buttons did not do up due to my shoulders and back muscle. I need to lose an inch Help!!! I have 3 months to go.
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am a lady and I have muscle pls how can I get rid of it I can’t even put on sexy tops or gown cause of my muscle pls help me want to get rid of this called muscle