Here is my beef to pick with it Karky(and others), but more than welcome your side on the subject.
This program and article misses the boat on a few things and doesn't take into account some others. If a 24 yr old 5'5 115 pound girl came to me and wanted to "tone" and had never worked out before, then her program would be something like this with a light deficit and focus on whole food eating. Reason being is her body structure, genetics and metabolism are what is suited for a workout scenario like this because she is dubbed more or less genetically sexy gifted.
However if a 24 yr old 5'5 175 pound girl came to me and wanted this style of body, that is not the program that is going to give it to her, and she may just not have the genes to achieve it at all. If she had the kind of lifestyle and genes for this style of body easily, then she wouldn't be at the point she is now. Added that program will lead her to a quick plateau.
The Brittney Spears ab thing is just a silly example really being that age plays a huge factor in womens hips and abs widening, however I do agree with if you want a sexy slim waist that isn't wide don't over train the obliques and don't add weights to your ab workouts. Achieving more elongated muscles is also merely adding a proper post lifting stretching routine to let your fascia stretch and allow growth for your muscles. This is a big reason why naturally smaller girls are drawn to yoga, but at the same time larger women will plateau to quickly and won't lose the needed body fat or get the proper shaping from a program that delicate.
I personally have no problem with women wanting a that typical slim "sexy" body as I have helped girls achieve that, however most women who will want to do this plan because they don't have it, this won't work to get it. I am personally not one of those women who naturally had that style of body, but I barbell squatted my way to get there as close as possible as having a sexy femme but strong body is of desire to me. I focus on proper stretching, Strong lifting sessions while in a deficit as I am getting shape and well butt lifting changes without adding alot of extra muscle and am slowly changing to the best of my bodies ability and with a smart training focus, how I am supposed to look.
So I get where he is coming from and understand and agree with alot of it, that is however if it was targeted to just a small amount of women that are ALREADY small trying to "tone" their bodies.
Exactly!
It's not for beginners, and an advanced girl will already be close to this if she's been training and is capable of it.
It's for maintenance of parts, but it's specialization.
The whole thing is a contradiction in terms, and the reason it pisses me off so much is because it's straight out of Shape or Oxygen, and it confuses women who already have enough misinformation to deal with. As someone that works with females, I have to say it's hard enough to deprogram them as it is.
If you're untrained and need to drop fat/"tone" : You should be doing a strength-based program with heavy weights, adjusting the diet and volume of work to control weight and body comp.
If you're advanced and need to drop fat/"tone" : You should be doing a strength-based program with heavy weights, adjusting the diet and volume of work to control weight and body comp.
I realize the program is oriented around muscle "shaping" and so forth; to emphasize some parts and de-emphasize others. That's fine in concept; bodybuilders can do it to some degree with specialization plans. In practice? We get 50-rep sets of idiocy. Some tard in the thread told me that its because the program is for maintenance of muscle, not development. Evidently he doesn't know what specialization means.
Waterbury and his Nuthuggers all tapdanced around the actual question of whether or not it would even do anything, and would only answer direct questions with more circular arguments.
As I said, I have my figure competitors doing 5x5, unless they just have glaring proportion issues. I add extra bodypart work as needed, but the main focus is on diet. The strength-training only serves to maintain the muscle (some even build it in the first stages).
Perhaps those missing the reason for the backlash should consider the original premise: Men and women should train the same way. When the article afterwards rejects that entire idea, something's likely not right.
