Working Out and Remaining Girly. Any body know muscle shrinking techniques ?

[Rachel4now]

Hello.  I know HRT regimen  can pack on fat to certain areas of our body's. Have been on now for only 2-1/2 months now. But I'm more worried about my "Nice" male arms I've spent years on to look "Good".
but now that i know who and what I am. I HATE my arms. And most especially my Tri Ceps. (oh and shoulders too!)
Any Gym Rats out there. ( i know Gym Rat doesn't sound right for gals - but lets have a sense of humor - haha? )

HOW CAN I keep my Arms LEAN FIRM and / BUT FEM. 

I want to be more FEM. THIS SUCKS. I spent all those years trying to perfect my self and now i can't get them shrink fast enough.
I know were all different but how many years does it take for Muscle Shrinking.

Im just under 6 foot tall. Have worked out a good portion of my life.
Look good for a guy for sure.

Have been working out less (as far as how a Guy works out) and have
been dropping the muscle size.

Used to be 194lbs. to 184lbs  (pretty lean)

Now 165 to 170 lbs. (pretty lean)

And yes i have been doing more Cardio for sure can only do so much but yes Cardio.

Thanks in Advance

[Deborah]

You just have to wait.  It takes time.  Your only alternative is to go on a no protein starvation diet.  That will speed things up but will also make you really unhealthy.  I recommend just waiting. 

Also,  it's a myth that lots of cardio burns muscle.  That won't happen unless your diet is really bad.


Conform and be dull. —James Frank Dobie, The Voice of the Coyote

[SadieBlake]

When you do strength training make it sets with low rep counts to failure, 3-4.of course if you're lifting this heavy you need good form to avoid injuries.

Anything in between will increase muscle bulk as well as strength.

[Rachel4now]

When you do strength training make it sets with low rep counts to failure, 3-4.of course if you're lifting this heavy you need good form to avoid injuries.

Anything in between will increase muscle bulk as well as strength.

So you don't think Lower weight and lots of reps to failure is good???

Ive been working out for most of my life and that makes sense to me.

But most of my life i never worked out like a girl........and id always thought genetic girls worked out this way or at least as far as "Girly" weight training

I've been training myself down in muscle size so far with lots of cardio and lower the weight I'm pushing around if not just flat cutting out most of my routine but now I've flatlined as far shrinking without starving myself to death
which I'm not about to do...

But my arms an shoulders still are very GUY looking and of course I'm going to think their worse than they are but still.....

O its tough being Trans    I suppose 2 years of HRT might help only into my 3rd month on HRT so (heavy sigh)

[staciM]

When you do strength training make it sets with low rep counts to failure, 3-4.of course if you're lifting this heavy you need good form to avoid injuries.

Anything in between will increase muscle bulk as well as strength.

Lifting heavy to failure?
That sounds like a recipe for adding bulk.

Keep it to cardio and low weight/very high reps.  Watch your protein intake after workouts.

[Colleen_definitely]

There might actually be something to it.  I do remember reading about how lifting to add bulk while in a calorie deficit can actually cause you to lose some muscle instead of bulk up.  I'll have to look again.

[staciM]

This may help...

http://www.criticalbench.com/reduce_muscle_size.htm

[Colleen_definitely]

That is very much along similar lines to what I remember.  They didn't go into the fast/slow twitch fiber part as it was a blurb about how to bulk up.

[Rachel4now]

This may help...

http://www.criticalbench.com/reduce_muscle_size.htm

Yeah that makes sense And is the Answer.... And was what i was already doing ...... BUT i was doing way less than what they said-- only once a week if not less...

but she's saying basically do my arms at That rate every time I'm in the gym....
hmmm thats why my legs are skinner cuz I'm always doing at least an hour of cardio 4-5 days a week .....
haha  i guess ill try and start doing my arms maybe 2 to 3 days a week with light weights 2 sets to exhaustion (80-100) .....
i start trying that......

a new mission 

[Arctophile117]

If it helps any, I'm just not working my arms. I switched from weights and isometrics to just stretching and calesthenics (no idea how to spell that). Might go back to isometrics for tone after a while, but with the blockers, estrogen and diet changes (swapped foods out according to testosterone / phytoestrogen content), I've noticed myself losing muscle mass pretty steadily, albeit slowly. My arms were incredibly developed, and my forearms are rounding out and softening quite a bit. I'm not sure if there's any scientific connection, but that's my experience.

I'll also add that while my forearms were what I noticed first, my pecs were the first to go (granted, my pecs never could develop well for some reason). Those went down and now my breasts took their place. But what is weird is that my muscles in any given group/region, while reducing (I assume due to lack of scarring FROM working out, as well as just not getting testosterone into their receptors), the individual muscles in those groups/regions are reducing at different rates. My legs are the most noticable for this, where everything is seen from the frontbalong the shin in particular. Weird, but cool, lol.