Quote Originally Posted by ModelInProgress View Post
Due to my genetic makeup, I am naturally more muscular than the "average" female (not taking into account weight training, just natural physique). My thighs are proportionately the largest area on my body and gain muscle very easily when I weight train. When I last consistently trained with a personal trainer and lost 6% body fat, my legs actually got bigger even though I lost both weight and body fat. I do not want my legs any larger, they may not get much smaller because of my build, but I do not want them larger (I already have trouble finding pants that fit, because things that fit my thighs are loose in the waist). Anyhow, my question is: what are some ways to tone my legs without them bulking up more (or at least not much)? Will using only body weight to do exercises such as lunges and squats (as opposed to holding dumbbells for example) and setting the weight on machines such as the leg press to a resistance that only fatigues my muscles after several reps (for example 20 reps instead of 8-12 reps) help to tone and slim my legs (taking into account also the need to lose the fat covering the muscle via cardio and diet) without gaining inches?
Well as far as building mass in the legs. If your genetically prone to putting on muscle well in the legs. Any exercise you do will probably cause some amount of size gain. However women especially tend to have a harder time putting on muscle mass than that of men. For the obvious hormonal differences between women and men. If you keep the weight lighter and the exercises in the higher rep range. It has generally been believed that this would cause the least amount of hypertrophy vs that of a traditional bodybuilding and powerlifting routines. I personally like to have women train based on time under exercise, Or basically I have them perform a given exercise for 1 full minute. One cant physically lift a large amount of weight for a minute without having to stop. So a weight is chosen and performed for 1 minute without stopping. If the weight has to be reduced to perform this full minute then that is what is done. I PM'd your hubby with a more in-depth explanation of this.