Does Lifting Weights Really Make You Bulky or Overly Muscular?

One of the common things we hear from clients and gym members is that they don’t want to lift weights because they don’t want to be bulky or overly muscular.

This, of course, is not the case. When you are doing resistance training, the key to achieving your goals is how heavy the weight is for you, how many sets and reps you’ll be doing and whether it is a compound or isolation exercise.

What do sets, reps and weight have to do with it?

The heavier the weight is, the fewer reps you’ll be able to do and the further into strength or hypertrophy training you lean. This however works in the opposite direction as well: the lighter the weight, the more reps you can do and therefore the further away from strength or hypertrophy you get as it becomes endurance training. To put this into perspective, typical reps look like the following:

A) Strength Training = up to 8 reps

B) Hypertrophy Training = between 8 and 12 reps

C) Endurance Training = upwards of 12 reps

What is the difference between compound & isolation exercises?

Compound exercises are movements that involve the use of multiple joints and multiple muscles, for example, a squat is a compound exercise that targets your quads and glutes, whereas you can isolate those two areas by doing leg extensions and a glute drive.

Compound exercises, whilst more difficult, spread the load across lots of areas and give a much more holistic approach to the training – working synergistic muscles, improving balance and being more efficient with your time.

In summary

To put it into one sentence: resistance training won't necessarily make you bulky unless that is what you are aiming to do.