I kept my gym work going right through my transition and noticed that over time it became a polite question to some of the guys if they could put the weights on and off my machies, because no way I could.

@marcellow, hit the gym young man, you will bulk up on T and you can sculpt your body into a hot dude

Hi,

In my talks with many trans people  what keeped coming up was lose of strength ,hmm funny that i thought, so did a bit of home work and yes it effected most trans and some was a lose of 60 %  wow i thought ,  were the meds to strong or other or health issues , the blood tests seem to not show any thing out of order so quess you well most any way have to just take it on board and live with it or with out your male strength.

This is where its totaly different for my self  ,i trained on the sites i worked on as a chippy and a little before that in the cabby shop and did weight lifting not your normal gym type it was lifting furniture on to a rotating  table to spray it so quess who got very strong , in the begining two of us did it till i got sick of that and did my self was the furniture heavy  yes yet i got strong enough to do it,

Now youll say i would have big muscles and bulk no not at all and have remained the same weight 11 1/2  stone =154 lbs,+    for 47 years no fat ever no bulk at all just a normal female body fit as strong as and light on her feet and quick, now  at 67 ,

Meds did not change my body concerning weight or much else  as you know im a intersexed female so meds have no power with in my body as to weight strength or over all shape , and that proves a matter with my difference from those of you who are, like it or not male bodyed ,  and when you go on meds they work very differently from us ,now i wont say all intersexed people , just   a few who may be like my self ,

And as a beside my bodys own hormones did more changes than meds did.and that started over 21 years ago ,  Just some thing to think about  we are not all the same in how our bodys work ,

...noeleena...

My loss of strength became really noticeable after a couple of years, or maybe it was because I tried to do something I had not done for a couple of years and thought; crap I am weak!

Over rest of the time, still losing "muscular" strength, but really happy with that.... hated doing all that sweaty muscular stuff prior, is over rated anyway 

L Katy

It took me about six months for it to become very noticeable. And to my surprise, it especially affects my finger strenght. I can still haul quite a lot of stuff if I pace myself and don't try to be a hero, which I did to great effect before since for some reason I had abnormally high arm strenght. My arms are still pretty fine, but anything I need to manipulate with my fingers like clamps, bolts, or yes, jar lids, is completely hopeless. Much more so than for the cis women around me, so I don't know what's up with that.

Ill be happy to lose some strength. In my trade ( stonemason) having to lift heavy things around, and mentally going ' yeh just lift it to there' and not thinking about 'bending the knees' etc. well I've got friends who are now regretting not lifting the right way or taking things on by themselves in their "younger years" and paying for it  now in back problems and knee problems.
So yeh bring it on I'll still do lifting but only what my body will be capable of,otherwise I'll ask for help which should be done nowadays anyway.

I'm not very strong to begin with so I just stick to Bikram Yoga, running and bike riding. If I can't be as strong as I once was then I will have at least a nice shape to me


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I had no idea that mtf lost muscle mass. I'm not transgender so I decided to join to understand the transition phase (as support for friends) I'm one of those lesbians who enjoy "thy ol boobs"

Quote from: Vamapandaz on January 04, 2015, 02:17:33 PM
I had no idea that mtf lost muscle mass. I'm not transgender so I decided to join to understand the transition phase (as support for friends) I'm one of those lesbians who enjoy "thy ol boobs"

Yep. Lower testosterone levels means muscle atrophy

Quote from: Vamapandaz on January 04, 2015, 02:17:33 PM
I had no idea that mtf lost muscle mass. I'm not transgender so I decided to join to understand the transition phase (as support for friends) I'm one of those lesbians who enjoy "thy ol boobs"

Yep. That's why it's foolish when they try to exclude us from sports. Never played sports, never wanted to, but still....

Quote from: Dee Walker on January 04, 2015, 02:27:39 PM
Yep. That's why it's foolish when they try to exclude us from sports. Never played sports, never wanted to, but still....

That sucks, but I guess its also part of being an average woman. I'm stronger than an average girl (I don't look it to much being thin and sortta girlie) but I've always been very boyish, I was practicly a boy growing up.

Quote from: Dee Walker on January 04, 2015, 02:27:39 PM
Yep. That's why it's foolish when they try to exclude us from sports. Never played sports, never wanted to, but still....

Yeah it's an excuse just like the "some pervs will pretend to be trans which is why we can't allow trans to use the correct gender restroom." This is despite the fact that a lot of trans women on HRT have diminished male sexual function.

Quote from: Eva Marie on January 03, 2015, 10:33:21 PM
Today I was doing a brake job on my car (i'm broke so I have to do that stuff myself). One of the more difficult tasks you have to do is to force the piston in the caliper back to its original position. I always used a large pair of pliers to squeeze the piston back and didn't think anything of it. Well TODAY was a different proposition I just did not have any strength in my hands; and i fussed with it for a long time before finally getting each piston moved back.

This kind of stuff used to be easy, but now I am weak as all get out and can't do it anymore Luckily with the loss of strength my muscular arms also shrank which is what I wanted.

C-clamp!  Works great!  (I've always done my own brake work too) 

Quote from: Cindy on January 04, 2015, 12:27:23 AM
I kept my gym work going right through my transition and noticed that over time it became a polite question to some of the guys if they could put the weights on and off my machies, because no way I could.

@marcellow, hit the gym young man, you will bulk up on T and you can sculpt your body into a hot dude

Yes ma'am. I gotta take advantage of my banana body shape^^

Quote from: Marcellow on January 03, 2015, 01:36:27 PM
Is that so? Huh. If only gaining muscle was that rapid.

Lifting heavy and low reps can bulk you up pretty fast, with plenty of T in your system that's sure to help. Don't forget whey protein immediately after workout and at night before bed.

I know this sounds ridiculous if you haven't ever really been an avid weight lifter but doing around 80-90% of the maximum workload you could do for any particular lift 3-5 reps for about 4-5 sets will not build as much bulk as working with higher reps.

Higher reps and lighter workloads is hypertrophy and causes less strength in the muscle group worked but more stimulation which causes the muscle to grow.

Plus is you are on HRT you will not really gain any further muscle mass just burn fat and add tone. This is why you'll see cis women lifting crazy amounts of weight doing stuff like crossfit and be pretty tiny.

You can look at competitive body builders who use the hypertrophy ( high rep) method and then cross reference that with a power lifter in say the feather weight, weight class, and you will see what I am talking about. Body builders rarely ever lift heavy. It's athletes that lift heavy and they come in every shape and size, but they are more concerned with strength than size.

I have altered my lifting A LOT since I decided to transition, but as soon as I go on Estrogen and especially andro blockers I am resuming a heavy workload. It has been my best therapy, saving grace, and set back since I was in HS.

Quote from: Eva Marie on January 03, 2015, 10:33:21 PM
Today I was doing a brake job on my car (i'm broke so I have to do that stuff myself). One of the more difficult tasks you have to do is to force the piston in the caliper back to its original position. I always used a large pair of pliers to squeeze the piston back and didn't think anything of it. Well TODAY was a different proposition I just did not have any strength in my hands; and i fussed with it for a long time before finally getting each piston moved back.

This kind of stuff used to be easy, but now I am weak as all get out and can't do it anymore Luckily with the loss of strength my muscular arms also shrank which is what I wanted.

Been there done that!    It takes all my might to remove a single lug nut nowadays. I still do all of my own automotive work within reason. Even using a 3 ton heavy jack is a chore. Years of HTR has happily made my arms nice and scrawny though.

Thankfully I use a compressor and impact wrench.

I try to avoid all upper-body exercise, and always have. In my life, I rarely had any visible muscle above my hips. My arms had more fat than muscle even before transitioning, so that seems to be working. Avoiding upper body work and taking long walks together helped me avoid excessive muscularity and prevent wide shoulders from developing. I did, however, have fairly large leg muscles - not bulging, just big. After 4+ months on HRT, my legs are still too muscular, although I have noticed slight changes. I, too, wanted atrophy because I just want to look as feminine as possible, but not much has happened. I think weight loss, which I am trying anyway to shrink my waist, should help with that as well.

As for strength, I seem to have lost much more of that than muscle itself. My fingers can't do much anymore; my arms can't lift as much, and my legs cannot move as quickly. I would have preferred to lose the muscle rather than the strength, but I guess any loss is progress.

Had to go in a tech center today to get my hands dirty and replace (lift!) some equipment. Wow, I had no idea how heavy it was... lifted up a wooden step ladder and I was clearly struggling with it now. Dang... I need to resume some strength traning asap. Good thing I had a colleague help me, I'd be up a creek without a paddle!

I've worked construction and was a competitive athlete most of my life.  Needless to say, for my size I was pretty strong pre-hrt.  Between month 3 and 4 I lost 20lbs in muscle.  It happened pretty quick.  I still work a labour job and feel like every day the load of tools I carry gets heavier and my arms are constantly getting smaller and squishier.  It makes for an exhausting work day but is a totally welcomed change ^_^  my supervisor sticks me with light work more often than not which is also totally welcomed!