Bigger or smaller breasts due to strength training?

Geschatte leestijd: 7 minutenStrength training does not make women’s breasts smaller. However, they can become smaller due to a diet and training focused on fat loss. Strength training can actually work more like a ‘pushup’.

‘Until boob failure’

Sometimes you see very athletic women whose breasts seem to have been “trained away”. When we look at women who compete in competitions such as Miss Fitness, Figure, or Bikini, we see (especially in the U.S.) that many of them have breast implants. This quickly creates the impression for some that training causes the size of “natural” breasts to decrease. This is true insofar as training reduces the amount of body fat. In practice, however, it is mainly the diet that makes women on stage so lean that it affects the size of their breasts. Strength training actually causes the chest muscles to push the surrounding tissue forward and upward. However, it will not be much more than a few centimeters at best.

Body fat and breasts

Body fat can be classified in different ways. One of these is into storage fat and essential fat. Subcutaneous fat storage accounts for about 8 to 10 percent of body weight in both men and women. Essential fat is found in bone marrow, deep fat storage, muscles, and the central nervous system. There is a significant difference between men and women in this regard. In men, essential fat accounts for between 2 and 4 percent of total body weight. In women, it’s about 14%.

This is because essential fat also includes “sex-specific fat”. Fat that is necessary for reproduction, such as supporting hormonal balance. This fat is found, among other places, in the hips, pelvic area, and breasts.

“Big breasts as a sign of prosperity”

Where does this fascination with breasts come from? Studies recording eye movements have shown that both men and women spend more time studying the breasts and upper body of women than any other part of the body.

One theory is that large breasts are an evolutionary sign of a large fat reserve, meaning someone has access to sufficient resources/food. It is known that in the past, overweight people were seen as attractive for the same reason when daily access to food was not a given for everyone. But not only in the past was this the case. It is still the case that men with a lower socio-economic background find heavier women more attractive than men who are better off financially. Likewise, for women, those who are financially less well-off are more attracted to overweight men.

Breasts still have the same effect. Researchers from Oxford have investigated this in two ways. In one study, they divided 1266 men from three regions “differing in socio-economic status”. They showed the men pictures of drawn women with breasts of different sizes. What they found: Men from the “poorest” region rated larger breasts higher than men from the “average region”, who in turn appreciated larger breasts more than men from the “wealthier region”.

In a second study, the researchers took men from England with comparable economic backgrounds. This time, however, they had 58 men look at the pictures while hungry while 66 other men looked while they had just eaten and were full. You probably guessed it: The hungry men rated larger breasts higher than the men who had just eaten.

So big breasts as a sign of prosperity, which is important to remember because apparently in the thousands of years since the emergence of Homo sapiens, we have learned that having access to plenty of food leads to more fat storage, which in turn leads to larger breasts.

Several studies have indeed shown that breast size is an indication of, for example, the amount of food eaten in youth and that breast size is more related to body fat than, for example, BMI.

Unfortunately, (most) men do like to see that sign of prosperity in breasts, but not in other places like the stomach and thighs. And those differences between poorer/richer and hungry/satiated men are of course relative. It’s not that wealthy men like women with small breasts. Men in industrialized societies prefer women with average to large breasts.

Anatomy of the breast

All of this becomes clear when we look at the anatomy of the breast. Once explained as an “irregular cone of fibrous tissue covered by a fatty envelope”. The “fibrous tissue” is formed by the milk glands and milk ducts.

Behind this, we see the large chest muscle, the pectoralis major, with the ribs and intercostal muscles between them. As you can see, the breast consists mainly of fat tissue.

So we see a muscle with fat in front of it. This may remind you of the stomach of

men (and women) who fail to get a six-pack. There is a layer of fat in front of those abdominal muscles that must be eliminated first. Unfortunately, the same misconception exists about both the belly fat in front of the abdominal muscles and the fat in the breasts: Many think they can burn the local fat by training the underlying muscles. That explains why some women think that by strength training the chest muscles, their breasts appear smaller.

Silicone implants are the steroids of Bikini

The popularity of women’s bodybuilding has declined sharply since the ladies started using more anabolics and looking less feminine. At the Arnold Classic (the second largest event in bodybuilding and fitness), this year the women’s bodybuilding class was completely replaced by an extra class in the men’s division. Over the years, other classes have been developed in which women can compete. The youngest and probably most popular class is the bikini class. Popular because these women come closest to what most men and women would see as the ideal body type. Very slender and trained, but not so trained that all muscle groups are visible and with the retention of female curves in the right places.

A large part, probably the vast majority of these high-level women, have breast implants. Why? Because it is impossible to have such a low body fat percentage and maintain the size of the breast at the same time. In the image on the right, we see India Paulino, one of the most popular participants in the IFBB Miss Bikini competitions. [Update] She has just won fifth place during the Mr. Olympia weekend. To her left, I have included a photo of one of the few figure/bikini participants at this level with natural breasts, Monica Specking.

The difference is clear. Women (and men) sometimes complain that society imposes an impossible standard on them. In many, if not most cases, I don’t agree. I do think that such a standard (usually “very slim”) would require too drastic a change in lifestyle for many, bordering on obsessive behavior. Undesirable, but “impossible”? Strictly speaking, such a low body fat percentage is achievable for many, depending on the sacrifices made.

In the case of the women on the right who participate in these kinds of competitions, we really impose an impossible standard when we expect them to still have ample bosoms. Again, to be so trained and have large breasts is almost impossible. Even if you naturally have large breasts.

The “funny” thing is that women accused of having implants often deny it in the same way as men who use steroids. For example, I read that Yeshaira Robles (Miss Bikini class, fourth place this weekend at the Olympia) claimed to be natural. Now, I’m not an expert in this field and it’s wrong to accuse people wrongly, but I would say Google the name and form your own opinion. If she looks like this when she has hardly an ounce of fat, you would think that with a normal body fat percentage she would have considerable back pain. Those who are honest about it have the same reason as men who use: “If everyone else on stage does it, I have to do it to have a chance.”

And what about strength training?

The same applies to this as to those abdominal muscles with fat in front of them. Visually, it makes no sense to train abdominal muscles if there is a lot of fat in front of them (except for core power, of course). If the abdominal muscles get bigger, they push the fat further forward and you seem even fatter.

However, this also applies to training the chest muscles, which offers an advantage. Just when you lose weight and your breasts get smaller, it’s handy if the muscles underneath them get bigger. If you look at the lower attachment points of the pectoralis major, you’ll see that they sit where a breast might “begin to sag”. By strength training, you push the breast from that point and higher forward, making it look firmer. However, don’t expect your breasts to suddenly be pushed 5 centimeters forward by a little bench pressing. In men, you can already talk about a reasonably developed chest if, through training, it protrudes 2 centimeters from the chest.

Now let’s hope that as a man on Monday, you not only have to wait for all the men who are standard training chest and biceps, but also for the women who have stepped off the treadmill en masse and are queuing up for the bench press!

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