This guide to bulking for women has been inspired by the frequent requests Lipstick Lifters receives for information on how to bulk.
As strong advocates of the bulking and cutting method; we are keen to ensure that women fully understand how, when and why they should utilise this method.
This is a lengthy guide, so if you don’t have time now, be sure to bookmark this page so you can come back later.
Contents
Before You Delve Deeper Into Bulking…
First you need to understand the concept of bulking & cutting. Because the two go hand in hand. If you haven’t already read Bulking & Cutting For Women, it’s worth doing so before you delve into this guide.
With that said, if you already have a good understanding of the bulking and cutting process, you can skip the above article and continue reading this guide to bulking for women.
Bulking For Women: What Does It Mean?
When we consider bulking for women, we know that it is a deliberate attempt to gain weight – namely lean muscle, with the intention of altering our physique.
Many women fear this process, because the idea of gaining weight can seem counterproductive.
However when you use this method, you understand that it is a necessary process in order to alter your physique. Because the bottom line is; you can do all the ‘cutting’ you like, but you will not reveal lean muscle you haven’t built.
Benefits Of Bulking
Bulking for women offers several benefits that contribute to overall physical and mental growth. Here are some key advantages:
Increased Muscle Mass
The most obvious benefit of bulking is that you will increase your lean muscle mass. When bulking, you are going beyond the effort of general weightlifting, you are exerting yourself deliberately for a short period of time in order to add as much mass as possible.
Speeds Up Metabolism
This benefit doesn’t get anywhere near enough promotion as it deserves. If more women knew, we are sure they would be lining up to lift heavy.
Building muscle rapidly through bulking increases your resting metabolic rate, leading to more efficient calorie burning, even at rest. This can support both weight management and body composition goals.
Enhanced Body Composition
When you bulk with intention, you have the power to change your body composition in exactly the way you want.
Let’s say you’re happy with your legs, but you want to have more definition in your upper body. All you need to do is focus your bulking sessions on the muscles you want to target. You are fully in control of what you train, therefore you have the power to alter your body composition as you like from a muscle building perspective.
Strength and Functional Fitness
Bulking isn’t just about getting bigger, it’s about getting stronger. The more muscles you have, the stronger you are. This doesn’t just help in the gym, if done right, it also translates to functional fitness, making daily activities easier and reducing the risk of injury.
Bone Health
Bulking helps strengthen bone density, reducing the risk of osteoporosis and improving overall bone density, especially important for us women as we age.
Improved Confidence
Achieving strength and physique goals through bulking will naturally boost self-esteem and confidence, empowering you to feel more confident in your body.
Empowerment and Independence
Engaging in a well planned bulking program will empower you to take control of your fitness journey. It also encourages you to learn about proper nutrition and training, as well as develop habits that promote long-term health and well-being. This puts you in control of your outcomes which in turn leads to you feeling more empowered and independent.
Importance of Bulking in Achieving Your Desired Physique
Your bulking phase is your opportunity to build the physique you desire. You do this by simply focusing on the muscles you want to build. This is particularly important when you start to consider overall shape and symmetry.
Don’t just train everything and hope for the best. Bulk with intention. Monitor your physique and look at the areas that you want to work on. Yet another reason why the bulking and cutting process go hand in hand. You need to be able to see how your efforts are paying off and adjust your approach as desired. That’s how you build your desired physique with this process.
Bulking For Women: When To Bulk
Bulking is what happens before the ‘cut’. So if you’ve ever found yourself wondering if you should ‘lose weight and then tone’, you are urged to reconsider.
The fact is; bulking comes first, and if you’re not bulking – you have no business cutting.
Of course you can ‘lose weight’, but the entire concept of bulking and cutting is an advanced and strategic approach to building a physique as described above. Even in your cutting phase, you’re not simply losing weight, you’re cutting fat while maintaining as much lean muscle as possible.
However, it is worth noting; if you have 30+lbs to lose, you should consider a simpler approach to weight loss first. Check out some of the workout plans we have available in our portal.
For everyone else, you can start bulking whenever you like. We all build muscle at different rates, and our goals are different, so there is no set time frame we can give you. For an absolute beginner we recommend 6 months at least. If you have 6-12 months lifting experience, you can go in on a more hard and fast - intense bulk for 6-12 weeks.
Ideally you don’t want to be in your bulking phase for too long, because if you’re doing it right, bulking is intense. With experience you will be able to bulk for shorter periods as suggested above, because your intensity will be greatly increased compared to someone with no lifting experience who is just starting out.
If you are interested in competitive bodybuilding you will need to be even more switched on to this entire process. Unless you’re already experienced, we strongly recommend you get a local coach.
How To Bulk
In short, bulking is a combination of a calorie surplus and heavy weightlifting. And just like cutting; when you bulk, your diet is a very crucial factor.
Potentially the most common misunderstanding about bulking is the idea that it is a ‘free for all’ when it comes to food. While this may work for some people, it is not something we want to encourage.
So to get off on the right foot, we recommend you get a well structured bulking workout plan for at least the next 12 weeks and have some idea of your meal plan for the next 12 weeks.
Women Bulking: Diet
Just like your cutting diet, your bulking diet should be made up of a combination of proteins, fats, carbs and fiber.
As a guide to get you started; you can use your ‘weight gain’ calories as provided by our macro calculator. Remember that these will be progressive, so keep a close track of your daily intakes, your weight and your progress. You can make tweaks if necessary.
You don’t have to meticulously count your calories in this phase and you don’t have to be perfect, though you should avoid ‘dirty’ bulking as this may help you gain weight, but it won’t be the type of weight you want.
If you’re struggling to eat your daily calories; consider drinking them. Protein powders blended with fruits, yogurt and peanut butter are a great way to get those extra calories in. For hardcore bulking you can blend your savory foods like chicken with water milk or raw eggs to drink.
Stay In A Calorie Surplus Throughout Your Bulk
Remember that the purpose of the calorie surplus isn’t just to make you bigger, it also makes you stronger, and when you are stronger you lift more and gain more muscle. You are eating to perform, so make sure you stay in your calorie surplus for the entire duration of your bulk.
If you try to consume less in this phase it will be at the detriment of your results. So don’t try to cheat the system by consuming fewer calories in your bulk with the hope of losing weight. This will hinder your progress in a couple of ways:
First of all; as mentioned above, the excess calories help you lift more and therefore gain muscle faster. If you consume fewer calories, you will hinder your strength and muscle growth potential. Secondly, if you’re not eating enough to repair your muscles post workout, you will struggle to recover quickly enough for your next workout.
Plan What You Are Going To Eat
You don’t have to use the macro approach to your diets, it’s just the easiest way for us to help any newcomers to this approach understand the process. Longer term you will start to fix the meals you need by default. So don’t worry, you won’t be weighing and tracking every bite forever.
Once you’ve worked out your weight gain calories broken down by proteins, fats and carbs, start to build some meal ideas around that – and don’t forget to include your veggies for fiber.
The most successful bulkers are the ones who plan and even prepare meals ahead of time. When you do this you aren’t left unprepared and hungry reaching for something that isn’t going to serve you.
We recommend that you plan at least a week ahead of yourself, cook all of your meals from fresh whole ingredients either on the day, or in batches at the start of the week.
If correctly prepared and stored, cooked meat can be refrigerated for up to 3 days and vegetables, pulses and rice up to 4 days. If you need to store any cooked foods for longer, consider freezing them. If you find yourself hungry and in a hurry, you are much better off defrosting and eating a meal you cooked from whole ingredients than reaching for a ready meal or a takeaway.
Creating An Effective Bulking Workout Program
There are a number of ways to approach your bulking workout. It all boils down to your current level of experience and your target muscle goals.
We have some beginner options below:
Introduction To Weightlifting For Women
Introduction To Bodybuilding For Women
For more experienced lifters we recommend:
Progressive Overload
Progressive overload is one of the fundamental principles in weightlifting. It involves gradually increasing the weight you are working with over time to stimulate muscle growth. This is particularly important in your bulking phase because you want to maximise hypertrophy as much as possible in order to achieve your physique goals.
During the bulking phase, progressive overload ensures that your muscles are continually challenged by increasing the intensity, volume, or resistance, consistently over time.
Without progressive overload, the body adapts to the current level of stimulus, leading to a plateau in muscle growth and strength development. Incorporating progressive overload techniques into your bulking phase ensures that you continue to make progress, leading to more significant muscle gains and improvements in your overall physique.
In summary, progressive overload is essential during the bulking phase as it ensures consistent muscle stimulation, which is exactly what you need to increase muscle mass, strength, and alter your physique.
How To Achieve Progressive Overload
There are a number of ways you can do this. Ultimately it boils down to the weight you lift and how you lift it.
First and foremost; you should consider that in your bulking phase you need to be working with a weight that physically challenges you.
As a guide for where to start; you should choose a weight where you begin to struggle around the 8th rep of a 10 rep set.
When you’re going for rapid mass; 3 heavily loaded reps is a valid set. So don’t be afraid to reduce your reps in favour of increasing the weight.
More advanced methods include; half/partial reps, trisets and dropsets. To further progress you can consider the 5x5 method, German volume training, and even the FST-7 training program. We cover some of these methods in more detail in this article on bodybuilding exercises.
In short; as long as you’re getting stronger, you can be confident that you will be getting bigger – provided you are hitting your daily caloric needs to bulk.
If you need help, our pre-written workout plans cover a variety of training categories and allow you the opportunity to choose and work with a number of methods to find which ones suit you best.
Learn More About Each Workout Category Below:
Single Muscle Group Categories...
Women Bulking Too Much – Aka; ‘Getting Bulky’
This is a common fear when we consider women bulking. But you need not be afraid. Take it from a group of women who have actively been trying to get ‘too bulky’ for years – it’s not that easy.
Honestly, if you are, stop stressing about this right now. Nothing is going to change overnight. Building muscle takes time, more time than most lifters care for, but that’s just how it goes. So as long as you are paying attention to your outcomes, you are 100% in control of how ‘big’ you get.
Cardio While Bulking
Generally speaking cardio isn’t necessary during your bulk, but that’s not to say you can’t or shouldn’t do any. In this phase in particular we recommend opting for more high intensity cardio, so short bursts of all you’ve got over long drawn out steady state cardio. HIIT training is better for maintaining your gains during this phase.
Recovery Strategies For Women Bulking
If you’re bulking properly, your muscles are going to be spent at the end of every workout you do. Your goal after that is to focus on recovering as quickly as possible.
A very brief lesson in how muscle is built for those that don’t know; when you lift, you create tiny tears in the target muscle, these micro tears will knit themselves back together during your recovery phase. This is why it is essential to rest and eat a good amount of protein to help your muscles repair themselves.
Pro Tips For Recovery:
Make sure you’re eating enough protein, particularly after your workout.
Get enough rest, this includes sleeping well.
Stay hydrated throughout the day.
Do some stretching and foam rolling at the end of each workout.
Use the sauna/steam if you have access.
Try cold therapy such as ice baths.
Massage therapy, i.e. regular deep tissue massages.
Setting Realistic Expectations For Women Bulking
Women bulking are at a slight disadvantage when compared to men working this phase, for the simple fact that we simply do not naturally produce as much testosterone as men do. With that in mind, you should manage your expectations in terms of how long it will take you to see the aesthetic results of your bulking efforts.
Nobody (men included) achieves a well built physique easily, it takes consistent effort over an extended period of time. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll reap the rewards.
Something to keep in mind is that as soon as you realise you are physically stronger, you can be certain that you have built muscle, whether you can see it on the surface yet or not.
When setting your expectations of your bulking phase, we recommend that you first consider where you are on your lifting journey. If you haven’t done this before, you should go into it with an element of curiosity, follow and trust the process, paying attention to what you are doing and the results you are getting from that.
For more experienced lifters, you should already have an understanding of how your body responds to weightlifting. If you are not entirely happy with your results it is a sure fire sign that you should try a different approach to your workouts.
It is often the case that women struggling to build muscle are in this struggle because they are simply not stepping out of their comfort zone. Do not follow the same plan and/or method until the end of time. There are a vast number of ways you can workout and if you’ve hit a plateau it’s your signal from the lifting gods to do something different.
Need New Workouts?
Learn As You Lift…
There is only so much “theory” you can consume. If you want to really learn, you need to lift. You need to put yourself out there and do the exercises, feel the muscles working and monitor the results. It all boils down to experience, and that is what I want to help you get through Lipstick Lifters.
Your gym independence is our success.
Free Resources
Our exercise pages have a wealth of information for you to consume at your own pace. It’s not an exhaustive list, but if you take the time, there is more than enough information there to get you started.
Free workout plans; don’t forget we have free workout plans available in the Members Zone portal for everyone. These alone are enough to see you through at least the next 6-8 weeks, if you’re resourceful you can make them last up to 12 weeks.
Remember, this is about gaining experience, you can fine tune your personal goals once you have a solid foundation of lifting experience behind you.
Paid Resources
If you’re looking to level up, check out what’s available for paid subscribers inside our Members Zone portal here.
Through Members Zone you can become completely gym independent for the same price as a single personal training session and some change.
It’s up to you to decide if you want to face the learning curve so you can do it yourself, or continue to pay someone else to do it for you. - There is no right or wrong option, it all boils down to what you want for yourself.
Take Ownership
By far, the most valuable thing you can do is teach yourself gym independence. This is our primary goal at Lipstick Lifters. We want you to be able to build and manage your own workouts in such a way that you are able to get the results you want on your own merit.
The fact is; even the most experienced PT/coach/nutritionist won’t know how your body will respond until you start doing the thing.
The bonus to being guided by a pro is that they will be more informed when it comes to making the inevitable tweaks to your diet and workouts. If you can afford it, you should consider getting a dedicated coach.
But! That doesn't mean you can't be successful alone, it may take a little longer, but in the end it will be worth it. You should treat this as a journey, we are always a work in progress, so unless you intend to go pro, don’t worry about how much time it takes, worry about being on the right track.
As long as you are seeing positive changes, you are heading in the right direction.
Bulking For Women FAQ’s
How does bulking differ between men and women?
The process of building muscle is the same for all human beings, the difference lies in the desired outcomes, which isn’t necessarily gender specific, although typically men tend to focus more on their upper body and women their lower body. This leans on our natural physical ability since men tend to be stronger on top and women on the bottom.
In the end, what matters is the muscles you want to focus on and build, we all have the same muscles, it is personal preference as to whether they are built or not.
How do I know if I'm ready to start bulking?
Do you want to build more muscle? If yes, you’re ready to bulk.
Should I lose weight before I bulk?
Not necessarily. It really depends where you are starting. If you have more than 30lbs to lose then we do suggest that you start with a more general approach to health and fitness. With that said, if you are more concerned with lifting heavy and getting stronger, by all means focus on that.
If you have a “weight loss” - more specifically a FAT LOSS goal, then we suggest that you leverage the strength you have now to get stronger faster, so that you can benefit from the boosted metabolism that you will gain from the extra lean muscle you will build in your bulk. So no, don’t lose weight first. Bulk and then cut after, that’s how the cycle works.
What should I eat when bulking as a woman?
You should eat fresh, whole foods prioritising proteins and fats without completely eradicating carbohydrates. See our Macro Calculator for suggested macronutrient breakdowns during each phase of this cycle.
What is dirty bulking?
Dirty bulking is a term used to describe an approach to the bulking diet that consists of unhealthy food choices. While these unhealthy food choices, such as fast foods and foods high in saturated fat and sugar may help someone get bigger faster, it is a method that should be reserved for people that have a really hard time gaining weight. Even then, it’s not ideal, but understandable for the individual who naturally struggles to gain weight.
What is clean bulking?
Clean bulking is a matter of consuming healthy whole foods in a calorie deficit for the duration of your bulk.
Do I need to count calories/macros while bulking?
It’s not necessary, but we do recommend it for a short period of time when starting out. The reason for this is because it will help you to understand how much food you should be eating during this phase.
Will I gain fat while bulking, and how can I minimise it?
Gaining additional fat during a bulk is common, it comes with the territory. You can minimise this by taking the “clean bulk” approach as described above.
How long should a bulking phase last for women?
Anything between 1-6 months depending on the level of experience and desired outcomes. Women with no lifting background will need more time to build up to the peak of the bulk.
What types of exercises should I focus on during a bulking phase?
You should focus on the exercises that specifically target the muscles you want to build, prioritising compound exercises and following up with isolation exercises. You can learn more about exercise order for maximum muscle growth here.
How do I know if I'm gaining muscle and not just fat?
You will know you are gaining muscle for the simple fact that you will be getting physically stronger. If you’re not getting physically stronger, you need to address your training method. Try one of our more advanced workout plans.
What supplements should I consider while bulking?
Supplements aren’t really necessary, what is necessary is a well balanced diet, that alone will provide you with all the energy and nutrients you need. If you are struggling to consume enough calories, you can consider adding a protein shake or a mass gainer. You can learn more about supplements in women's weightlifting here.
Can I still lose weight while in a bulking phase?
If you’re losing weight, you’re doing it wrong. Don’t try to lose weight in this phase, play the long game, it works, you will get to trimming the fat in your cutting phase. This approach will lead you to more sustainable results.
How do I prevent excessive muscle soreness during bulking?
Warm up before every single workout and stretch after each workout. Consume enough protein to repair your muscles and consider using the sauna/steam/ice bath as well as regular foam rolling and deep tissue massage.
Can I bulk without going to the gym?
You can get stronger and build muscles without a gym, but the entire purpose of bulking is to gain mass fast, in order to do that you need access to heavy weights and equipment in order to create enough resistance for you to grow. If you have that available to you at home, great.
What should I do if I hit a plateau while bulking?
If you hit a plateau it’s because your body got comfortable with your current training plan and/or intensity. At this point you should change your workout plan. Check out what we have available in our Members Zone portal.
How do I transition from bulking to cutting?
It’s up to you, you can go straight from your bulk into your cut, or you can drop back into a week or two of maintenance and then go into your cut after that.
The benefit of the maintenance phase is that it helps to balance your metabolism to avoid extremities. Generally lifters prefer to stay in an extended maintenance phase after their cut, but you can do it after your bulk too.
Will I lose muscle mass during the cutting phase after bulking?
It is natural to lose some of the gained muscle during your cut, but you can keep this to a minimum when you follow the entire bulking and cutting process stringently. Check out our Fat Loss Formula if you want some clear guidance on the entire process. You can also see our Ultimate Guide To Cutting For Women for more details about the cutting phase.
The Ultimate Guide To Bulking For Women Conclusion
Bulking is a process, one that takes time, you’re not going to achieve anything with a short term mentality. Take the time to understand and plan this process out for yourself. If you’re a beginner, give yourself at least 12 weeks of uninterrupted ‘bulking’ and track your results so that you can make more informed decisions moving forward. If you have a strong history of lifting, try a 4-6 week bulk.
Also keep in mind that women generally build muscle at a slower rate than men, so if you’re starting with little lean muscle, accept that you will need to build muscle for several months before you start to see significant changes.
As mentioned at the very start of this article; bulking is part of the bulking and cutting cycle. So be sure to check out The Ultimate Guide To Cutting For Women so you know what to do next.
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