The Weekly Riff with Louise Green
The Weekly Riff cuts through fitness culture’s noise with real talk from Louise Green — award-winning coach, author, and size-inclusive fitness trailblazer redefining what strength looks like. In a world where most fitness spaces still exclude, this podcast offers something rare: a space that honours all bodies and holds the belief that your body is fully capable of strength, power, and performance — through every season of life, including midlife and menopause.
Each 20-minute episode dives into strength training, body image, mindset, and the deeper layers of showing up for yourself — without the toxic pressure to shrink, conform, or apologize. Louise blends expert insight, lived experience, and raw honesty to explore how we can all train for strength and self-respect, not validation.
Expect conversations that challenge stereotypes, dismantle diet culture, and invite you to rise — as you are, right now.
🎧 Tune in weekly for unfiltered, empowering riffs on what it really means to be strong — in body, mind, and culture.
The Weekly Riff with Louise Green
Episode 1 - Why Women Won’t Get Big and Bulky From Lifting Weights, and the Real Reason We Fear It.
In this episode, Louise Green tackles one of the most persistent lies in fitness culture: the fear that women will accidentally get big and bulky from lifting weights. She breaks down where this fear actually comes from, not biology but culture, marketing, and diet culture narratives designed to keep women small, compliant, and focused on shrinking. Louise explains how muscle is actually built, why “toning” is so misunderstood, and why strength training is not a threat to femininity but a direct path to power. This is a conversation about permission. Permission to be strong. Permission to take up space. Permission to stop fearing your own potential.
Key Takeaways
- Many women are afraid of getting big and bulky from strength training.
- That fear is cultural, not based on lived experience or physiology.
- Muscle growth is slow and intentional, especially for women and particularly over 40.
- “Toning” is mostly about body fat changes, not light weights or endless reps.
- Diet culture sells the fantasy that bodies are endlessly controllable.
- Strength training is about capability, confidence, and autonomy, not aesthetics.
- Women are conditioned to shrink themselves physically and socially.
- The fear of bulk is often a fear of power.
- Strength improves health, resilience, bone density, and longevity.
- We need new cultural stories that support strong women, not smaller ones.
Sound Bites
“There is no accidental bulk.”
“Strength disrupts the narrative.”
“Take up the space.”
Chapters
00:00 Debunking the myth of getting bulky
06:56 How muscle actually grows and what toning really means
09:23 Diet culture and the lie of body control
11:46 Why strength is a feminist act
Louise Green is an award-winning coach with 20 years invested in working with women of all body sizes. She has coached thousands of women from all over the world, if you're ready take the next step in your strength, check out her coaching program: https://www.louisegreeninc.com/size-strong