The wrong impression is given by the media when women bodybuilders are featured. They are generally shown when they are at their ripped and vascular contest peak or when actually training with weights in the gym. This is when their skin is thinnest and fat is lowest in order to show the most detail and striation of every muscle. On top of that, all the images people see are when muscularity is maximized by the poses. Rarely are they shown standing normally with muscles relaxed. They are instead shown pumped and tight from exercise.

Furthermore, women bodybuilders only look like that once or twice a year at the end of the training for competition cycle.

This misconception that if you work out with weights you are going to balloon out to look muscular and lose your femininity deters many women from even considering resistance training as part of their body shaping exercise and health program.

Also, many males and females think it is not ladylike for women to workout with heavy weights as in power lifting or bodybuilding.

Society ascribes various feelings and traits that should go with the words masculinity and femininity. Men for example have big muscles and don't cry at the movies; women don't have big muscles and do cry at the movies.

Life however, is not so straight forward because men can cry at the movies and women, at least some of them, can develop big muscles. Genetics plays a big role in how much muscle a woman can develop. Very very few, in fact, are actually able to develop the big muscles that lend to the impression that muscle building women look more masculine. Those who do build big muscles are very serious about their training and the exercises they engage in.

Women in general have much less genetic predisposition to building muscle than men.

A female bodybuilder for example may have about 5kg more lean muscle mass than the average woman. A male bodybuilder though could outweigh the average man by up to 50kg in lean muscle mass.

A male bodybuilder will often be recognized as such even when fully dressed in the street. Even competitive female bodybuilders on the other hand, are rarely identified as bodybuilders when they are dressed in normal street clothes.

Because women just don't have the natural hormonal makeup to develop giant muscles, the changes they make from bodybuilding exercise are much less pronounced than in men.

An average 80kg (175lb) man who starts serious bodybuilding training might be able to put on about 15kb (35lb) of solid muscle in a five year period without using steroids. Over the same period a woman equally serious about training might be able to gain about 5kg, a third of the solid muscle that a man could gain. And that's if she has favourable genetics and works out hard.

Women reshape their bodies without adding muscle bulk. As a woman training with weights you are more likely to improve your shape, tone and proportions than build great muscle mass.

The last thing you need to be concerned about with exercise is developing large muscles if you don't want them. Even if you did want them, they are incredibly difficult to build. Instead you can look forward to body changes that make you sexy and attractive as well as fit and healthy.