Female Bodybuilding Workouts

Most people do not give the credit that is due to female bodybuilders and female physique / bikini competitors. Since the main hormone for females is estrogen and they lack the testosterone levels of men – it is increasingly difficult to build a lot of lean muscle mass on a female frame. To make matters even more difficult – estrogen is a fat storing hormone.

This means that female bodybuilders are actually going against the grain and are trying to build lean muscle even though their hormones put them at a major disadvantage with both lean muscle gains and keeping really low body fat levels.

To achieve maximum hypertrophy female bodybuilders have to undergo highly intense workouts that test them both physically and mentally.

Female Bodybuilding Split:

The typical female bodybuilding workouts will be set up into training splits where a workout will be for an individual muscle group. Training like this allows you to break down the maximum amount of lean muscle tissue in a particular workout and then rest it for 5-7 days to allow for maximum growth.

Since legs are very important to a women bodybuilder of physique competitor – there is a particular emphasis on the quadriceps, hamstring and gluteus development.

Typical Female Bodybuilding Training Split:

Monday: Chest, Triceps

Tuesday: Quadriceps, Gluteus

Wednesday: Back, Biceps

Thursday: Hamstrings, Calves

Friday: Deltoids, Traps

Saturday and Sunday: Rest and optional Cardio

How do Female bodybuilders Train?

Now that we covered the typical training split for female bodybuilders – let’s dive into how they train to maximize muscle hypertrophy.

Female bodybuilders practice a variety of different advanced training strategies to break down the maximum amount of lean muscle tissue and get a tone physique.

This article is going to pinpoint the 2 most popular training philosophies for female bodybuilders:

1. Eccentric Overload
2. FST-7

Eccentric overload training is so powerful for a female bodybuilder because it breaks down the maximum amount of lean muscle tissue through intense negative overload.

You break down more muscle fibers when you lower the weight (for instance when you lower your butt and torso on a squat) – than when you actually lift the weight up.

The combination of a slow and controlled eccentric movement with heavy overload in the 8-10 repetition range results in incredible amounts of hypertrophy in a short amount of time.

FST-7 training involves squeezing the muscle throughout each repetition and creating a ton of healthy micro tears by doing a lot of sets with short rest periods between.

In fact, FST-7 training means you are doing 7 sets of between 8-12 repetitions with less than 30 seconds rest between sets.

FST-7 training allows you to build lean muscle mass by stretching out the fascial tissue directly under the skin and above the muscle. The more “stretchy” that the fascial tissue becomes through FST-7 training the easier you will be able to pack on lean muscle mass.

This is a powerful training strategy for female bodybuilders and no doubt maximizes their training efforts and genetics. 

Advanced Training Strategies

Female bodybuilders also practice several popular advanced training strategies to speed up their results and maximize time spent in the gym.

Some of the popular advanced training strategies that are regularly used by female bodybuilders are:

1. Slow Motion Training

Slow motion training involves going extremely slow and contracting the muscle throughout the entire repetition. This is great for creating more healthy micro tears and building up a stubborn muscle group.

1. Drop Sets

Drop sets mean that you are starting off with a heavy weight and dropping the weight by about 20 percent each set and going until failure. Drop sets are great for exercises like the bench press and squat.

1. Opposing Muscle Group Supersets (such as push and pull)

Opposing muscle group supersets mean you are working opposing muscle groups back to back so you can get more training volume done in less time.

This style of training works perfect for training chest and back on the same day or working out your arms such as doing bicep/triceps supersets.

1. Reverse Pyramid Training

Reverse pyramid training means that you are performing sets, which lower the repetitions and increase the weight each set. For example, you may go with a rep scheme of 10-8-6-4 while increasing the weight each set.

All 4 of these training principles allow you to maximize time spent in the gym and speed up results by throwing different types of overload, rest times, and repetition paces at the female bodybuilder.