WOMEN AND STEROIDS

Due to their hormonal make up, female athletes need to take a different approach to the use of steroids than their male counterparts. The specific compounds considered to be the safest for use by women are Anavar, Primobolan, Nolvadex, Winstrol, Maxibolin and Durabolin. It's also very important to note that even on low doses of these particular steroids, some women will develop virilizing effects. This is due to the fact that any amount of steroid introduced into the female endocrine system will trigger a reaction, since it's essentially a derivative of a male hormone. With this in mind, it's always recommended that low dosages of weak androgenic steroids are used for short periods of time.










SIDE EFFECTS

Most common side effects experienced by women using steroids are:

•     Acne and oily skin
•     Aggression
•     Male pattern baldness
•     Lowering of voice tone
•     Disruption of menstrual cycle
•     Clitoral enlargement
•     Increased hair growth on face, legs and arms

More positive side effects of steroid use in women would be:

•     Increased feeling of well being
•     Increased energy
•     Decreased recovery time from workouts
•     Heightened sex drive
•     Muscle and strength gain
•     Decreases in estrogenic fat (e.g. upper legs, abdomen, upper arms, butt)

2013 Ms. International

Chest Workout And Training Tips

A great upper body is incomplete without chest training. Find out why you shouldn’t be copping out of your chest workout!

When most women approach their trainers with their results wish list, they hope for a firmer stomach, shapelier glutes and thinner thighs. Trainers almost never hear a woman say, "I want a firmer chest." In fact, most females are under the impression that chest training should be left out of the picture!
To these women, chest development should be left to the men. They're afraid chest training will make them less feminine. Ladies, that thought process is junk! Just trash it. If you want a complete program and a body to be proud of, you need to include chest training.

These busted myths and programming tips will help you get past your fears and lead you to a chest revelation!

Myth 1 Chest Exercises Will Make My Boobs Smaller

This myth gets perpetuated because female bodybuilders sometimes hit the stage with flat-looking chests that are far from what we normally deem feminine. It's not the muscle that makes their breasts smaller; it's the extreme diet.
Most bodybuilders walk on stage with body fat levels that are far lower than what's considered healthy for a female. Breasts are primarily fatty tissue, so when body fat levels go way down, so do breasts. Aside from the women who have implants, most fitness and bodybuilding competitors just don't have enough body fat to keep their bras full.

As long as you sustain body fat levels that are well within a healthy range, you won't have an issue. According to the American Council on Exercise, women need to have at least 10-13% body fat for "basic physical and physiological health." Dipping below 10% (for ladies) may bring "underfat" health risks.

Myth 2  Chest Training Will Make My Breasts Firm

This myth just makes me laugh. Supposedly, with some bench pressing, your breasts will go from soft to rock hard. Who needs a sports bra now?
Training your pecs will build muscle underneath the fat makes up your breasts. As long as you aren't dieting too severely, your fat mass should remain. If anything, the added muscle helps your breasts appear fuller and might actually give a little boost to your cleavage!

Myth 3  Just Do Push-Ups

Most women add push-ups to their regular routine as an afterthought and then wonder why their upper body isn't looking better. As with any other muscle group, you need a sufficient level of exercise variety and weight resistance training in your program.
A combination of bench press, incline bench press, cable or dumbbell flyes and push-ups is the variation and difficulty you should be aiming for.
Once you reach a certain level of fatigue, push-ups aren't going to do much for maximizing strength gains. Unless you put a plate on your back or find some other way to add resistance to push-ups, they're not going to help you get stronger.
Instead, add them to the end of your workout as a finisher.

Chestivus For The Rest Of Us

Now that we've covered what not to worry about, here's what you need to know about chest training:

    It might seem like a good idea to use light weights for "tone," but remember that muscles respond best to a challenge. If you lift light weight for high reps, you'll be making very few fitness improvements and won't be doing much besides burning calories.
    You won't gain muscle mass unless you're eating a high-calorie diet -- all the heavy lifting you do on a standard or fat-loss diet will increase fitness and strength, but you won't get big, so don't be afraid to lift heavy!

    Keep your reps within the 8-to-10 range for bench press and incline bench press. For flyes, take it up to 10-to-12.

    2-to-3 sets of each exercise will be perfect for strength gains. Any more or less may not produce the results you want.

    For compound lifts like the bench press, rest one minute between sets. Also, try to hit your compound lifts at the beginning of your workouts.

    Between sets of flyes, decrease your rest to 45 seconds. Because you're just using your body weight for push-ups, rest only 30 seconds between sets.

Frequency

Depending on your current workout split, you can work your chest muscles up to 2-to-3 times per week. Make sure you take a day off between workouts.
If you're using an upper/lower body split, add this chest workout to your upper body days.

The Workouts

If you're feeling really frisky and want to add other compound movements before the accessory lifts, go for it.

5 Reasons You Should Support Women's Bodybuilding

All bodybuilders are athletes. It's time we give the ladies the same respect we give to the men. Here are five reasons you should support brawny women!
Female bodybuilders get a lot of hate. In fact, many women who blur the lines between what is "normal" masculinity and femininity are ridiculed for their "manly" bodies. Because female bodybuilders have more muscle than most men who don't train, they're laughed at. Instead of being celebrated for their hard work and intense dedication to a difficult lifestyle, they're regarded as "unattractive," "unnatural," and, worst of all, "gross."

Reality check: not everything women do is for men's viewing pleasure. Bodybuilding is a sport. Female bodybuilders are athletes. They deserve your respect.

Still not sure you can get past the whole idea of cheering for a woman whose biceps are twice as big as yours? Let me help you out with five observations:

1  Building Muscle Mass Is More Difficult for Women

Men are genetically designed to carry more muscle—they're generally bigger and heavier than women.
Although a lot of women worry that lifting weights will make them bulky, the truth is that most women don't have the testosterone (or eat enough) to build mass to the same degree that men do.
As a result, female bodybuilders can do the same amount of training as men, and with the same intensity, without achieving the same results. In other words, women work just as hard but get less bang for their buck. Talk about frustrating.
I know, I know, "But steroids!" Clean or not, female bodybuilders have to do a lot of work.

2  Female Bodybuilders Compete Under More Stringent Regulations

If you've never perused the IFBB rules for female bodybuilding, you should. Male competitors don't have any limit to how big they can get. In fact, the bigger the better. Women, on the other hand, have to present a "muscular, yet feminine shape.1" "Femininity" is subjective—it's up to competitors to interpret the rules and then try to apply them.
Besides putting on fake eyelashes and doing their nails, female bodybuilders have to make sure they're not too big. In fact, the IFBB regulations also state that for women, "muscular development must not be carried to such an excess that it resembles the massive muscularity of the male physique."
Lady bodybuilders have to be big, yes, but also shapely, feminine, pretty, and graceful. That's a pretty long list of attributes to fulfill.

3  It's More Difficult for Women to Become Ultra Lean

For reasons having to do with reproduction, women are designed to hold 6-11 percent more body fat than men do. According to some studies, the hormone estrogen also makes it more difficult for women to burn fat2. So, not only do women carry more body fat than men, but it also takes more work for them to lose it.
Now, don't get me wrong—I'm not knocking male bodybuilders. But women have to fight their body to be rid of stored fat. The male body uses fat much more efficiently, and men's additional muscle mass expends more energy. For women, getting lean enough to see glute striations is probably more difficult than we fans can even imagine.

4  Female Bodybuilders Are Less Socially Accepted than Male Bodybuilders

The stigma attached to female bodybuilding goes far beyond the steroid conversation. Our Western culture tells women to be skinny, weak, and above all, desirable.
Women who bodybuild are not weak, they're not skinny, and to most people, they're too masculine-looking to be considered desirable.
Sure, hardcore fans of the sport appreciate female bodybuilding, but the majority of people in and out of the fitness community feel discomfort with the blurring gender boundaries.
I would argue that female bodybuilders have the bravery to ignore the social standards of their culture and do what they love. To me, that's awesome.

5  They're Breaking the Glass Ceiling!

Female bodybuilders are constantly showing the world what women are capable of doing. Women can be strong. We can have big muscles. We can be totally shredded. It doesn't matter what "parts" you were born with—you should be able to create the body you want, society be damned.