I have thunder thighs..all muscle...anyway to slim them down?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I tend to get blocky thighs with "normal" gym workouts, but Pilates gives me the long and lean look. The trade off is that my core is the only thing being super strengthened -- but since I'm not looking to leg press a VW or anything like that, I don't care. I work out to look good, not to be a badass.

OP you have to decide what you want. If your goal is to fit a certain physical image, then stop exercising. Let your muscles go away, put as little load on your legs as possible. You will be weaker, obviously.

My goal is to be a badass and I don't care what other people think of my appearance. So, even though I have legs that are probably bigger than yours, I cheer when they get stronger and bigger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I tend to get blocky thighs with "normal" gym workouts, but Pilates gives me the long and lean look. The trade off is that my core is the only thing being super strengthened -- but since I'm not looking to leg press a VW or anything like that, I don't care. I work out to look good, not to be a badass.

OP you have to decide what you want. If your goal is to fit a certain physical image, then stop exercising. Let your muscles go away, put as little load on your legs as possible. You will be weaker, obviously.

My goal is to be a badass and I don't care what other people think of my appearance. So, even though I have legs that are probably bigger than yours, I cheer when they get stronger and bigger.

Quoted PP here. Nowhere did I say I don't exercise. I said I work out with a specific goal in mind, and that's to look a certain way. I'm healthy and adequately strong -- I can lift/carry 75 lbs. or so, I don't get winded easily, etc. I just feel happier with myself when I fit the aesthetic I prefer.

I'm sincerely happy for you that you're meeting your fitness goals. You go, girl. Kick some ass. But our goals are not the same, so spare me the judgment.

[Anonymous]

What Pilates and barre classes do you suggest. I have drumsticks for legs and I want them to look good in a skirt. I could care less that they ground me to earth

[Anonymous]

Liposuction worked for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I tend to get blocky thighs with "normal" gym workouts, but Pilates gives me the long and lean look. The trade off is that my core is the only thing being super strengthened -- but since I'm not looking to leg press a VW or anything like that, I don't care. I work out to look good, not to be a badass.

OP you have to decide what you want. If your goal is to fit a certain physical image, then stop exercising. Let your muscles go away, put as little load on your legs as possible. You will be weaker, obviously.

My goal is to be a badass and I don't care what other people think of my appearance. So, even though I have legs that are probably bigger than yours, I cheer when they get stronger and bigger.

Quoted PP here. Nowhere did I say I don't exercise. I said I work out with a specific goal in mind, and that's to look a certain way. I'm healthy and adequately strong -- I can lift/carry 75 lbs. or so, I don't get winded easily, etc. I just feel happier with myself when I fit the aesthetic I prefer.

I'm sincerely happy for you that you're meeting your fitness goals. You go, girl. Kick some ass. But our goals are not the same, so spare me the judgment.

I was not judging you, though I realize re reading the two posts that it probably felt like that. Sorry about that.

You have an appearance based goal. Exercise is likely causing OP's legs to be bigger because they are stronger. My legs are naturally muscular and when I started running, lifting, etc they got bigger. (There are plenty of other parts of my body that store the fat that my legs apparently don't want

You are able to exercise without your legs getting bigger because you have a different body type than I (and the OP, I would guess) do. If I had an appearance based goal of smaller legs I would stop lifting and running and would try to stay off of my feet because my legs are inclined to be big. I know plenty of people - including a powerlifter friend - who exercise and don't have legs like mine. I just meant that if she had an appearance based goal she probably shouldn't be so active, since she tends to put muscle on her legs. That's all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Liposuction worked for me.

liposuction removes fat, not muscle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Liposuction worked for me.

liposuction removes fat, not muscle.

I highly doubt it's muscle. But I guess she wants to believe that.

[Anonymous]

DD is a ballet dancer and she has managed to resculpt her overdeveloped quads from changing her technique so it can be done - I've seen the difference. Also Pilates and barre as previously mentioned will help. Try to google ballet and lengthening muscles. Ballet dancers often deal with this. It's not going to be a super radical change but I can see the difference in DD.

[Anonymous]

Serena Williams is a goddess! Embrace it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Liposuction worked for me.

liposuction removes fat, not muscle.

I highly doubt it's muscle. But I guess she wants to believe that.

I am sure there is some - I carry weight in my back and my midsection and my legs just don't put on much weight at all so it doesn't seem far fetched to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pilates, barre to lengthen

Are you trying to tell us that doing these exercises is going to physically lengthen OP's femur?

You can lose weight, or you can let your leg muscles atrophy. If you have a body type that naturally holds on to fat in your legs, losing weight will be hard. Might be better to embrace your body instead, challenging as that may be for someone like you.

It's unlikely op's body shape will change significantly but by doing exercises that lengthen muscles vs shorten (jumping, lifting) they might look a little leaner.

"Someone like you" - wtf?

Your muscles will not get longer by doing barre or whatever. that is nonsense. If they got longer they would be bunched up around your bones. Similarly, weight lifting does not make your muscles "shorter".

NP here. The pilates posters have been to too many classes where they constantly talk about "lengthening" the muscle.

It's not that pilates lengthens the muscle. It's that pilates tends to work and strengthen some muscles that just don't get attention in other types of workouts. So it balances out the work. Often, when a person does one type of exercise/workout/weight lifting routine, they tend to really, really strengthen some muscles but do nothing for other muscles. Pilates (or really just cross training) can help balance out whatever other workout you do by strengthening some of the areas that just don't get targeted otherwise.

But no exercise is going to give you longer legs. My observation has been that very athletic women who have short legs tend to have the problem I think OP is talking about. They have short legs and a long torso, so it makes their athletic thighs *seem* really large because of the proportions. I think it's best to just accept your body type. You also can make sure that you strengthen your upper body and core to help create more of an hour-glass appearance. But really you can't change the length of your legs and torso. Do what you can to be strong, and then love the body you have.

If you are going to do pilates, I would add yoga or some backbending to the mix to balance it out. Most pilates classes I've been to really don't do enough in the way of backbending to balance out a lot of the other movements. Just a personal opinion.

[Anonymous]

I have the body type where I could not develop large legs and booty if I tried. However, I also was in dance class and recitals for my childhood and favor the Pilates, barre, and, yes, Callenetics workouts. The difference is those workouts get to smaller movements and smaller muscles. I feel the burn. Your body weight guides the difficulty level.

Do you have a shape like Denise Austin? She has larger thighs.

I am now doing a booty Bootcamp with heavier weights, squats, lunges, deadlifts, and my goal is to try for the first time in my life to build larger muscles in my quads and glutes.

The instructor has very large butt and thighs, and she is flatter chested than I am. She lifts twice the amount of weight I lift. I don't want my legs and butt to get like hers. It took her a year to transform her body. I saw how she looked before. She now has a tighter larger and rounder butt, except she couldn't get the better butt without the HUGE thighs. The shape still doesn't really look great with the rest of her upper body.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pilates, barre to lengthen

Are you trying to tell us that doing these exercises is going to physically lengthen OP's femur?

You can lose weight, or you can let your leg muscles atrophy. If you have a body type that naturally holds on to fat in your legs, losing weight will be hard. Might be better to embrace your body instead, challenging as that may be for someone like you.

It's unlikely op's body shape will change significantly but by doing exercises that lengthen muscles vs shorten (jumping, lifting) they might look a little leaner.

"Someone like you" - wtf?

Your muscles will not get longer by doing barre or whatever. that is nonsense. If they got longer they would be bunched up around your bones. Similarly, weight lifting does not make your muscles "shorter".

NP here. The pilates posters have been to too many classes where they constantly talk about "lengthening" the muscle.

It's not that pilates lengthens the muscle. It's that pilates tends to work and strengthen some muscles that just don't get attention in other types of workouts. So it balances out the work. Often, when a person does one type of exercise/workout/weight lifting routine, they tend to really, really strengthen some muscles but do nothing for other muscles. Pilates (or really just cross training) can help balance out whatever other workout you do by strengthening some of the areas that just don't get targeted otherwise.

But no exercise is going to give you longer legs. My observation has been that very athletic women who have short legs tend to have the problem I think OP is talking about. They have short legs and a long torso, so it makes their athletic thighs *seem* really large because of the proportions. I think it's best to just accept your body type. You also can make sure that you strengthen your upper body and core to help create more of an hour-glass appearance. But really you can't change the length of your legs and torso. Do what you can to be strong, and then love the body you have.

If you are going to do pilates, I would add yoga or some backbending to the mix to balance it out. Most pilates classes I've been to really don't do enough in the way of backbending to balance out a lot of the other movements. Just a personal opinion.

I agree. I also think that you can work the smaller muscles by doing compound movements with free weights - not machines. Machines isolate certain muscles. All those little muscles that are used for stability are snoozing when you use most machines.

[Anonymous]

NP here. As a disclaimer, I lift heavy weights and have a large butt/thighs proportionate to my waist. My thighs are mostly muscle - I'm currently in a size 10 pants with 18% body fat.

If you carry the weight in your thighs, the best way that I've found to get thinner thighs is to lose weight. I fit into size 4 pants when I was lifting heavy and eating at a calorie deficit.

Free weights works all of the small muscles. I tried pilates on a whim last week and found it fairly easy because of all the strength training I do. Nothing can "lengthen" muscles because their job is to contract, and they are attached at their ends to a stationary point on your bones. When magazines who pictures of celebs who "lengthened" their muscles by doing the workout du jour, what they generally mean is that the celebs lost body weight while preserving enough lean body mass that they look fit and not skinny-fat. Do what you enjoy.

Also, the whole aesthetics vs badass thing is a false dichotomy. You can be badass at any size. My husband prefers my size 10 ass/thighs to my size 4 ones, but some people will have different preferences.