Weight lifting question..

[Pumababi]

Hey all! I've been lifting for the past two years, on and off, on and off. I've read a lot of information in bodybuilding.com, womens health and fitness, oxygen, etc. Many, many advocate, lift heavy... for muscle, and loss of fat. I have lost a lot of inches and fat... but gained the muscle everywhere. But, i look bulky now because of the fat that I still have on me. I dont want to get bigger, i want to keep my muscle... but drop the fat so I'm thinner with muscle- I hope that makes sense. i dont want to add more, i want to lose the fat- TO SEE THE MUSCLE, cuz right now it's hiding... and i just look bulky.


I'm so used to lifting heavy, then when lift light now... i'm feeling like i'm doing something wrong?? I've been so mind trained- lift heavy, lift heavy, it doesn't make you bulky- you won't look like arnold- blahblah. However, I seem to put on muscle fairly easily due to genetics.

Like i'm not working hard enough. I know that weight doesn't matter- its proper form that gets you what you want- but is it useful to lift light or is it a waste of time? I up my reps to 20, per set, and i do circuit training.
So I just do the lifting, 2-3 times a week, and do lots of cardio. Where as a year ago, I was doing advanced splits... 4-5 days a week, or 4 full body routines a week.

I'm just so frustrated because I see women in the gym, who are petite, with muscle- lifting heavy. But I dont look like that, even when I was at a lower weight- 130ish 20%bf; I still looked thick- and lifting heavy.


Any thoughts, i would soooooooooooo appreciate!!
sorry if this was a bit all over the map, i'm just frustrated!

[iyamamaschke]

Re: Weight lifting question..

Hey girl I know how you feel it's easy for me to Bulk up what you wanna do now to keep that muscle and to not bulk any more is to do dropsets and supersets. you want to completely fatige the muscle lifting heavy enough that you feel a burn at the high number of reps you are doing. You will feel it belive me. By doing more reps with less weights you are activating your muscles but also fatiguing the muscle so that you will feel like you really kicked but. I love lifting heavy but switching it up is the key. I would also recommend that you add in more cardio days 4 and 2-3 lifting days you can do full upp and lower body workouts this will help your body burn the fat as we.. You don't wanna just do any cardio I would also recommend some slow sustained cardio followed by High intensity interval training, this will get the fat burning furnace running in full tilt. Try this 4 6 weeks I will guarantee you will see results.

I will help you out in any capacity I can any questions let me know

Sarah

[Pumababi]

Re: Weight lifting question..

Oh my god- thank you so much for your support! I do have questions!


1. What are dropsets and supersets? How do you do them? Is that where you do as many reps as possible in a minute with the lowest weight?

2. amount of weight. Ok. i did upper body today... and I'll give you some examples...

I did like... 10 pounds on the cables for a lat pull and a row- 20 reps each, 4 sets. It was easy, but I did feel a work in it after a while. I could have upped it to 40 or maybe 60.. is this what you mean by "heavy?"

DB curls- I used a 10 pound bell, and a 5 pound bar- (this is what I mean by light) . Up that to maybe 15-20lb bell. 10 pound bar ( i think thats the highest I could do, but not sure)

Tricep extension... i did a 5lb db, and a cable of 35 (which was light also). Up this too? My triceps are where I'm carying a lot of fat, there is muscle there, but it's like... flapps.. you know? Heheh.


2. Cardio- here's my problem. I tore the ligaments in my knee (not sure which ones exactly, it will be a few months before i can see a knee doc.) I've been doing varying intervals and resistance on the eliptical (never the same thing every day), and the bike. They aren't aggervating my knee. However, when I step on the treadmill (I miss walking, and really wanted to start running prior to this injury..)... i'm walking along at a 2.0mph.. and my knee kills! I have to get off, after like, 10seconds.

I guess I'm concerned about cardio adaptation- if I'm varying it every time I go, will that keep that from happening faster? HITT, I haven't tried yet with the knee... I can go at quite a clip on the eliptical.. but i haven't tried it on the bike. By know means I don't putz along on either machine, but I haven't tried a HITT session, like.. going as fast as you can on one resistance, and upping it after every minute, until you max at 20 mins (which at this point you should be maxed). I dont want to lose the cardio that I"m doing, so that's why I'm hesistating- do you think its safe for me to try that? I do wear a knee brace and stretch a lot- which seems to help.


I always do cardio after weights. It was slow-to moderate... not anything overly intense, b/c at that point I was tired.



Thanks again so much for your responses, and help!!

[iyamamaschke]

Re: Weight lifting question..

You will adapt to your cardio but if you are doing the bike keep the resistance lower and just go fast as you can for 30 seconds drop off and recover for 2 minutes then do that again with that you should notice some change in your workout you'll be tired. If you are doing shorter intervals on the bike or Elliptical it will be less stressful on the knee but, if at any time you have pain that is a notion to stop ASAP. you may have to take it east on the cardio but, with the super and drops you can get your heart rate up also it's more like a cardio workout. You may have to adapt that to say 4-5 days a week and slow down on the cardio till you know what's up with your knee. We would never wanna aggrivate something preexisting and casue more trouble with it and permanent damage then you will be hooped.

Basically a superset is usually reps over 20 so say you are doing tricep ext and the heaviest you can go for 6 reps is say 40 lbs so what you do is you drop that by 20 lbs and you hump out as many as possible if say at 15 you are screaming your triceps are on fire you drop the weight by 5's and you keep pressing them out till you get to the desired 25. At the end of that you will be super sore and shaking. What I always do is a dropset first this is what it would look like.

Say you are doing Triceps for example you would do this for every body part. a DROPSET is going from the heavies weight you can lift say you can do 40lbs tricep extension for 8 you do the 8 quick drop the weight to 35 try and do another 8 or as many as you can do till you feel like you just can't do it any more, drop the weight by 5 agauin again do as many as possible, drop again do as many as possible byt his time you will truely hate me and wanna kick my ars. The work really well and completely fatigue the muscles to where you will feel it. Your goal is to do 5 drop downs EX: from 40,35,30,25,20,15 say. then you wait 3 minutes and you pick another tricep exercise and you do 2 sets of supersets with 2 minute breaks between sets. so it'll look like this and you are gunna hate me!!!

Tricep extensions
8 reps x 40 lbs no rest drop weight
8 repsx 35 lbs no rest drop weight
7 repsx 30 lbs no rest drop weight
8 reps x 25 lbs no rest drop weight
9 reps x 20 lbs 3 minute rest

Remeber the goal is to do as many as you can till you can't do another one so the reps will be different all the time this is just an example.

Next Tricep Press
25 reps x 20lbs pressed out say 15 had to drop the weight a further 5-10 lbs and finished the last 10. rest for 3 minutes the next set you drop the weight by 5-10 reps and you do that over.
25 reps x 10-15lbs you were barely able to finish that one.....

By this time cause you did 2 successive exercises one after the other you will be sore fatigued and will ahve had one of the best workouts ever. If you are doing say back the same day then you would repete the same type of thing for back.


I hope this helps some more Keep asking questions it's a great thing.

Sarah

[Pumababi]

Re: Weight lifting question..

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooowwww. I have a feeling that i will be cursin ur arse, but hey- sound advice, and doing the right things are so important!


1. I'm going to be doing legs tomorrow, can I apply this principle with them?
Squats, Single legged squats, Step Ups, Lunges, Leg curl, Leg press, Leg Extension, Calve raises, Deadlifts are staples. Any other ones I should know about? And then I do machines that target your hips.


2. What I've been doing with cardio- this is my second week... AM fasted for an hour varied resistance, and speed, ( on the elipt. with the moving hand bars) Last night I did something like this on the elip---- , I start off the first 2-3 mins flat, no resistance to warm up, and then I'll do 4 bars of resistance 4, then 4 bars of resistance 6, then do 3 bars of resistance 12, then drop it to 2 minutes resistance 4, then up it to 7, for 3 bars, and up it to 9, then drop it to 5, an then at that point I"m near the end, so I just up and lower up and lower for the last 15 mins, or I just level it out to 3-4 resistance, until cool down. On the elip my heart rate stays between 160-199/213. There is no metal bar to put your hands on to see it, but they have a screen that blinks the number throughout your workout.

Wow- it really Sucks for it to adapt so quickly. I've heard people say running is the best and fastest way to lose weight (bugger, figures)- does your body adapt to that quickly also?


After the elip, then 30 mins on the bike to cool down at resistance 6-7. They have a heart rate bar on there.. and I'm keeping it in my zone. 118-160. Normally, I find my heart rate is usually like, 158-170 on that.

How should I change this up? Can I still do longer sessions in the am or pm? And incorporate the HITT in the second session? Or should HITT be a completely seperate day. The reason why I do long stretches of cardio is for the calorie burn- is this the wrong way of thinking?


3. Having a good cardio workout- is it supposed to be hard, and tiring? A trainer once told me you should feel like you want to kill the machine, and want to get off it any minute- thats how you know you're working hard enough. But can you burn if it isn't always that difficult?

[theredhead]

Re: Weight lifting question..

I'm certainly no expert, so I hope you don't mind if I stick my nose in here. This program fascinates me: http://www.seriousstrength.com

I've read Slow Burn and have used its principles when working out. My body doesn't respond well to ANY exercise, so I can't tell you from my experience how well it works. But I've read quite a bit on their site, along with Fred Hahn's blog. I just thought I'd put this out there for you or anyone else who is interested.

[Pumababi]

Re: Weight lifting question..

Thank you all very much! you've given me a lot to work with, and investigate! I'm sure this is helpful for others too!

[ValidRouge]

Re: Weight lifting question..

Sarah gives great support and advice Pumababi! She's the bomb!!!!

[2big4mysize]

Re: Weight lifting question..

what you are doing with your cardio is called HIIT or high intensity interval training.

our bodies adapt to any exercise program as we get in better cardio shape and strenghten muscles. you eaither step up the speed and/or difficulty or you stop burning as many calories as you did when you started and you just maintain your fitness levels.

Since you do not deisre to imcreae your strenght nor size of your muscles you need to find a way to use them to burn as amany cals as you were when you were working hard to bulid them so as sarah said you got to fatigue them now with reps instead of force.

the amount of androgen each female has will determine how bulky her muscles are going to get and one nice thing about low carbing is insulin interfers with the transformation of androgen to estrogen in females so less insulin production more estrogen production and less androgen hence less muscle bulk. but in the end your genetics will deterine how bulky your muscles get. I got a sister that never lifts more then her own body from a chair or bed and she has huge calfs like I do all her life as do all the relatives on my mother's father's side of the family while my dad who rode his exercise bike and played golf had bird legs all his life.