How to build lean muscle for females

The question, ‘how to build lean muscle for women’ has sparked a huge debate as to whether a woman can actually become lean, strong, and shapely muscles through weight training alone.

The answer to this ladies is YES we can! Here, we’ll run through everything you need to know when it comes to lifting weights and building lean muscle as a women.

If your main goal is to become lean, with added muscle, and less body fat, then you’ll need to follow a few steps.

How To Build Lean Muscle

• Lift weights
• Perform light cardio 
• Do HIIT 
• Eat correctly 

Let’s run through these steps in more detail to show you how you can build lean muscle!

Use compound exercises

There’s one reason why compound resistance training has been used time-and-time again, it’s because it works!

Performing a weight training routine twice per week will help your muscles to grow, and become lean, as well as strong.

Use these basic, ‘tried-and-tested‘ weightlifting exercises to build lean muscle:

• Squat – works the whole lower body, including the quads, qlutes, and core.
• Lunges – looking to build a better booty? then lunges will get you there.
• Deadlift – this is a great exercise for whole body strength, it’s a full-body exercise.
• Bench Press – looking to build more muscle on your upper body, then use the bench press.
• Shoulder Press – having nice round shoulders looks great on anyone – use the shoulder pres to build nice shoulders.
• Leg Raises – we all want a great looking core. Leg raises will help you build good looking abs in no time.

Perform light cardio

No workout is complete without a cardio routine. Cardio not only helps you feel more energized, it also clears out toxins in your body.

Light cardio also help you lose fat in a controlled and healthy way.

Light Cardio Options

• Walking
• Swimming 
• Cycling 
• Jogging 
• Skipping 

Incorporating two cardio sessions per week into your training plan, will help flush out lactic acid that may be present from your resistance training sessions.

In short, it will help you recover from weight training and burn fat simultaneously.

Add HIIT to your workout

Now that we’ve covered resistance training and light cardio, let’s move on to HIIT.

HIIT offers a quick solution to fat loss, however, you must be warned, HIIT should be used in moderation; for example, once a week.

The reason for this is; it’s aggressive on the whole body and takes more time to recover form each workout.

HIIT Options

• Sprinting
• Spinning Sprints 
• Rowing Intervals 
• Boxing Intervals 
• Tabata Training 

You may not necessarily feel sore. But, you may feel slightly tired the day after a HIIT workout.

This is due to your central nervous system catching up in an effort to heal your body. At this point, you’ll want to get as much rest as possible.

Eat whole foods

There are sayings which I’m sure you’ve heard of, and that’s; ‘abs are made in the kitchen,’ and ‘you can’t outrun a bad diet.’ 

These two statements couldn’t be more true. No matter how much you train, you cannot eat a bad diet and expect to have a lean and healthy body – you have to eat whole foods to achieve this.

Okay, so what do I mean by whole foods? I mean anything that has one single ingredient, such as brown rice, sweet potato, beans, chicken, and all vegetables.

Whole Food Examples: 

• Brown rice 
• Sweet potato 
• Chicken, beef, turkey, eggs 
• All vegetables 

Eating single food ingredients will be much easier on your body to digest, thus, helping you to lose weight, and build lean muscle at the same time.

Conclusion

Building lean muscle as a woman can be done with the right planing and dedication.

By following our tips, and using weight training as a base of your lean muscle building program, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a strong, powerful, and lean woman!