Calling all fitness experts!

[livinontheedgell]

Since mid Feb. I have been hitting the gym really hard. I go to the gym 4 days a week and my workout is as follows: Mon-Upper Body, Tue-Lower Body, Wed-Off, Thurs-Upper Body, Fri-Lower Body and the weekend off. During my workouts, I do 2 exercises for each body part and do 4 sets of 12 with a resistance level of 5. (Not too easy, but feel the burn on the last set) Each day, I also run a mile and a half on the indoor track and swim laps for 25 minutes.

Now my goal here is to tone and reshape my body. And that is happening, however I am also gaining more muscle mass and weight than I want too. I have maintained the same weight for the last 3 weeks. What can I do or change to continue to loose weight and not bulk up but tone and reshape my body at the same time? All advice is welcome and greatly appreciated on this matter. Thanks!

[ziggy]

Re: Calling all fitness experts!

first i lost 100 pounds of fat then i started going to the gym and since going to the gym i have lost another 50 pounds of fat and gained 60 pounds of muscle

but anyways i too have only gained weight since going to the gym but loseing 50 more pounds of fat totaling 150 pounds fat loss and gaining that 60 pounds of muscle made me look ALOT better

so even though your weight is going up your most likely loseing fat and gaining muscle which is good as long as you keep loseing fat and your body's fat % keeps going lower thats good

but if you don't want to get super muscular cause then the food bill will go up just simply don't lift too heavy of a weight make the weight easy to lift

go for lots of reps and full movement like when doing a squat do a really low weight or just the bar with no weight and then do the full movement all the way down

but really if you can afford the food bill you should try to gain muscle too it will make you look alot better sept for abb's thats one body part you don't need lots of muscle to look good but rather a really low body fat %

[canucme]

Re: Calling all fitness experts!

i know what you mean. i train with a guy right now who doesn't care about strength or the muscular look. he likes being lean and cut.

like ziggy says... lower the weight and do more reps. i call it a cardio strength training program. go for a minimum of 15 reps on each set and give yourself less time in between sets. maybe 30 seconds or so.

your first set should be with a weight that you can 15-20 reps with and then decrease the weight over the next 3 sets in order to maintain the 15-20 reps with only the 30-60 second breather in between.

[forbey]

Re: Calling all fitness experts!

Any time you lift for strength and bulk muscle you should kep the weights heavy enough to feep comfortable with 2 sets of 7 and have to push out a third set of reps. Once you get to the point where 3 sets is without major stress you should move it up.

With toning and building sleek musculature you should be seriously lowering the weights, pushing up the reps to a minimum of 15 and up your number of sets to 5 or more. The first 2 sets should almost feel easy, sometimes too easy. you need to slow the reps down and make sure you are using correct form. The next 2 sets should be a little tiring but not difficult. The last set or two shouldn't hurt, but should leave you with more of a burn and muscle exhaustion. When you get to the point where the last set or two bebomes too easy you should up the weight.

As stated earlier, a full range of motion and a good burn in the last set should be your goal. As the exercise gets more tiring, pay special attention to your form. It is easy to allow your form to slide, but that only cheats youself.

forbey

[livinontheedgell]

Re: Calling all fitness experts!

Thanks for the good advise! I will change up my routine next week and try 4 sets of 20 for each body part with 30 seconds of rest between each set. For now, I think I'm going to stick with running and swimming for cardio. I really appreciate your input. Thanks again.