Julia Vins reminded me that women don't have to be tiny (crosspost from TrollX)

@jb9 Eh, I think it totally is. I've bulked up a shit ton from Crossfit, I'm sure if I dedicated myself to just lifting without all the metcons/cardio and did not think about controlling my weight for bodyweight exercises, I'd get huge like her. Some of us just have the genetics for putting on muscle and size fast.
 
@jb9 She doesn't show signs of acne, hair loss, increased body or facial hair in any of her pics and you're claiming she's on steroids? Why can't we just assume it's just be from hard work and dedication? Why do we need to undercut someone's achievements like that?

Seriously, I never get that attitude. Women can become pretty muscular without steroids, it just takes more work. And just be because it's harder doesn't mean it's impossible. It only means that more effort goes into it.
 
@mary_woods No one is undercutting her achievements. You keep saying that to everyone who mentions steroid use. It, in NO WAY, undermines her records or the physique she's attained. If anything, taking steroids means even more hard work and dedication to your sport because your diet and training need to be on point to get good results, otherwise its kind of a waste of money. Its a fuck ton of hard work.

There is no attitude here. You're attacking people for having realistic expectations. I didn't see a single person say she's a cheater or a bad role model because of steroid use.
 
@sheron Disagreeing with people and stating why you disagree (in my case pointing out the lack of physical evidence based on what we can see in terms of her body and the lack of usual side-effects) is not an attack. It's a disagreement. I never once insulted anyone or attacked them as a person, I just disagreed with them and present my opinion why. That's how discussions, when people don't agree, work. I'm not saying I'm right, but as it stand I don't see enough evidence to really sway my opinion.

If you don't like that, fine. I don't really post online to gain people's approval, and lying about my own thoughts/opinions/feelings to make other people happy would just leave me feeling pretty shitty about myself. I have enough baggage in my life from being trans and the years spent hating myself and stuffing my feelings into a little hole deep inside of myself to add to it to just so I can make myself popular on the internet.
 
@mary_woods We can't have a discussion when you're putting words in people's mouths. No one said she's any less impressive, or didn't work hard, or isn't dedicated, or that there was anything wrong with her possible use of steroids, so why do you keep saying people are undermining her achievements? No one here is.
 
@sheron Why do you keep dragging up a topic that was largely dead by the time you started posting?

Frankly I'm tired of going back and forth with this already and don't understand why I need to keep defending opinion. You have it, it stands as is and I'm not going to sit here and try to justify myself to people I don't even know.
 
@mary_woods I completely agree that women can become pretty muscular without steroids. However it is impossible to go from Julia Vins's 2011 build to her 2014 build without steroids.

Using the McDonald Model, you can see that in the first year of training, a female can gain 10-12 lbs of lean body mass. In the second year of training, a female can gain 5-6 lbs, and in the third year of training, 2-3 lbs. In total, that's about 20 lbs max.

Does she look like she's only put 20 lbs on, in between those two photos? Remember that muscle is a lot more dense than fat/bone is. I would personally guess 30-40 lbs.

I debated against posting this, since I don't want to get into a "steroid-shaming" argument here, I think she looks great. However, I also don't want others to have unrealistic expectations. Hard work and dedication can only go so far, unfortunately.
 
@mayday3
I completely agree that women can become pretty muscular without steroids. However it is impossible to go from Julia Vins's 2011 build to her 2014 build without steroids.
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I disagree honestly.

Using the McDonald Model, you can see that in the first year of training, a female can gain 10-12 lbs of lean body mass. In the second year of training, a female can gain 5-6 lbs, and in the third year of training, 2-3 lbs. In total, that's about 20 lbs max.
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Source? All I found trying to Google this was the McDonald's Business model. And honestly that sounds really low. Especially since women only progress slower in the upper body than men, but have no difference in gains in the lower body. And the volume of her workouts could be creating a lot of hypertrophy as well. She also looks leaner in some of her videos and pictures which tells me that when she's at her biggest we could be seeing a fair amount of "pump" from her workout as well.

A lot of factors at play in this is all I'm saying.

Does she look like she's only put 20 lbs on, in between those two photos? Remember that muscle is a lot more dense than fat/bone is. I would personally guess 30-40 lbs.
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She's also not cut down to small levels of bodyfat. I'm willing to bet she has around 20+% on her body. That'd make her look bigger too. Plus we don't know how healthy her starting weight was. For all we know she could have been basically starving herself thing and actually rebounded from that. There isn't a lot on her to really go with so it's a lot of questions.

I debated against posting this, since I don't want to get into a "steroid-shaming" argument here, I think she looks great. However, I also don't want others to have unrealistic expectations. Hard work and dedication can only go so far!
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While true they do only go so far, I think assuming steroids is a bit much as well. We don't have all the facts and to me jumping straight to steroids (especially when she's missing some of the key side effects of steroid use) seems like a way to undercut her hard work and diminish her accomplishments.
 
@mary_woods You seem really invested in believing that she did not need to take steroids to develop this kind of mass -- even after other women who do use steroids have piped up and given informed views.

It makes me wonder if you have some (probably subconscious) reason for wanting to believe that she didn't need to take steroids to look this way. No worries if that's not the case, I just thought I'd throw it out there in case it strikes a chord.
 
@dawn16
You seem really invested in believing that she did not need to take steroids to develop this kind of mass -- even after other women who do use steroids have piped up and given informed views.
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I just don't think steroids are the only possible answer. I'm just not convinced is all. If she ever comes out and says otherwise I'll admit being wrong but I think it's too much of a foggy area to be so sure that she does take steroids.

It makes me wonder if you have some (probably subconscious) reason for wanting to believe that she didn't need to take steroids to look this way. No worries if that's not the case, I just thought I'd throw it out there in case it strikes a chord.
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No chords struck. I just don't think the evidence for her supposed steroid use is as definitive as claimed. I have my views, they have theirs and frankly that's all there is to it in the end.
 
@mary_woods I linked to the McDonald model citation in my original post, here is a direct link: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/whats-my-genetic-muscular-potential.html. It was written by Lyle McDonald, who has written multiple books on muscle gain and is considered an expert. The amount of muscle may sound low, but consider that women have far lower amounts of natural testosterone in the body.

She's also not cut down to small levels of bodyfat. I'm willing to bet she has around 20+% on her body. That'd make her look bigger too. Plus we don't know how healthy her starting weight was. For all we know she could have been basically starving herself thing and actually rebounded from that.
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To me, the level of definition in her musculature indicates that she has very low body fat, probably 15% or less (especially in the photo you posted with her back). It also seems like her starting weight looks pretty healthy (I'd estimate 20% body fat there). But there's no way to really get a definitive answer.

I checked her webpage and it seems like she's 18 and has been powerlifting for 2 years (since Sept 2012). There's a limit to the amount that a 16-year-old girl can naturally bulk up, especially in the space of only 2 years of heavy lifting.

But overall, I've read all your responses in this thread and I admire how you are defending your role model. It doesn't really matter who's "right" and who's "wrong" about Julia Vins's bulking methods - we're all just guessing anyways, since Julia isn't likely to come over here and set the record straight.

After all, we all clicked this thread because we support the fact that "women don't have to be tiny" - we shouldn't let a debate on steroid use get in the way of that :)
 
@mary_woods I mean, I might be wrong and you might be right, and I'm not trying to take away from her hard work at all (obviously she worked for it). Maybe she naturally has more testosterone in her system than the average woman. Anyway, if you google female powerlifters you won't find many upper bodies like Julia's. If you google female bodybuilders, you'll see a few.
 
@jb9 And not all female bodybuilders take steroids. Sure, she might have higher than average T levels, but considering what her workouts look like, she has a lot of volume that brings a lot of hypertrophy. Like this routine here (it's the same one I posted above). She works pretty damn hard from the looks of things and I don't think that assuming steroids is fair to her, or others like her who work really hard without that crutch.
 
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