What exercises and how much?
 

Hi, I wanted to see what types of exercise everyone was getting and how many reps or how long they are going for. I think I get enough but sometimes wonder if I should up it a bit more.

Here's mine:
-Treadmill 5 days a week for 40 minutes at 3.3 mph, incline of 6 with wrist weights
-Around 15-20 minutes of step ups and lunges 4-5 days a week (just started last week)
-10 minutes of abs (exercise video) 4-5 days a week (also just started last week)

That's a good question. How long are you on the treadmill? Are you getting your heart rate up? Are you sore, one to two days later?

I've read that we need to keep our heart rate up of for 20 minutes before we start to burn fat, so my goal is to exercise at least 45 minutes to an hour a day 4 to 5 days a week, more if possible. However, if u are just starting out, you do what you can and build your stamina.

What do I do? Well, I've progressed over the years. About 5 years ago, I started out with Denise Austin exercise tapes and her show that used to be on Lifetime (shame she isn't on anymore). I struggled with those, at first, then progressed to doing two shows consecutively(I tivo'd them).Simply doing that and keeping 1500 cal's a day allowed me to lose the weight. Then had 3rd child and unfortunately aged a bit. Had to start from scratch, but it was working for me. Then I was talked into trying a kung fu class. Had fun. One year later, I'm still doing the Kung fu and still enjoying it. It still makes me sore as he!! and there is always something new to learn to keep it interesting, important for me.

Hi Michelle,

Thanks, I forgot to put my time for the treadmill. I have edited my original post now. Right now I do 40 minutes which is all I have time for in the morning before work. I have increased my incline steadily as I felt the workout getting easier. Note that I have not increased the speed because my treadmill tends to wig out at 3.5 - I will be at 3.5 then it will jump to 6, then down to 2...YIKES! :p

By adding the lunges, my leg muscles feel pretty fatigued by the end of the week. I am also steadily increasing my lunges as I feel I can without making it to where I can't walk at all the next day due to soreness. ;)

My cardio is usually a 6-mile walk once a week and a 10-minute, moderate-high intensity "sprint" on a rowing machine once a week. I also do free weight circuits with high or plyometric reps that keep my heart rate up. Each session lasts between 15-20 minutes.

Other than that, I do high "bang for buck" heavy lifting, like squats, deadlifts, olympic lifts and assistance movements (clean and jerk, push press), pull-ups, dips, and variations on the bench press. I change up the lifting scheme every 4-6 weeks or so to keep from plateauing - right now I aim for high load, 5 reps or less on 3-5 movements per day. Every ten days or so I'll take a few days off just to let my body completely recover.

IMO people should be doing this type of lifting more because it burns fat like crazy and forces your body to adapt, building muscle and strengthening bones and joints, but I realize that a lot of the lifts are a tad technical and it really helps to have a coach/trainer. Exrx.net has a dictionary of all these exercises and can provide some more familiar substitutes.

Hi Nik,

Thank you for your response. What exactly do you mean by heavy lifting? Heavy weights or something else?

Hi anderson02,

By heavy lifting I mean high load, low to moderate reps. Generally for each exercise I find a weight I can lift just once before pooping out, drop it down to around 75-85% of that and do a couple sets of 4-6 reps. I'll occasionally go up to 10 reps a set only if I'm doing recovery work with lighter weights, but most of my lifting is done in fewer than 6 reps per set. I also keep a regular workout log so I won't forget what my one-rep max (1RM) is for a particular movement.

I could go into some detail here but suffice it to say there are two types of hypertrophy (muscle growth) that your muscles can undergo: sarcoplasmic (or structural) and myofibrillar (functional). With high-rep, moderate-load training that most people are familiar with, your muscle takes a real beating (i.e., "feeling the burn") and your body adapts to this by adding more cushioning to your muscle cells by absorbing more water into them. This extra water increases the volume of the cellular liquid aka sarcoplasm. This creates a lot of bulk muscle, much more prominent in men but occurs to a slight degree in women too, and causes some people to flip out and stop lifting altogether.

For me, low-rep, heavy-load training leads to the latter type of hypertrophy, in which, because you're lifting really heavy weights, your body adapts by making it easier to lift heavy weights, i.e., you add more muscles fibers to each muscle cell, and your strength increases by a lot while you build lean, dense muscle. The size of your muscles will increase a tiny bit but they will become noticeably harder to the touch. During this type of exercise you don't feel as much of a burn or get as much of a "pump," but it does take a lot of steam out of you. To recover well from this type of exercise, you have to shoot for a good amount of protein every day (at least 0.5g/lb body weight) and getting a good night's sleep is essential. But your metabolism spikes so much, you won't believe it.

So I am guessing my whimpy little 5 and 8 pound weights won't do the trick with that sort of work out. :D Ha ha...

Where do you get your research? I would like to look into it more. Not cause I don't believe you ;) but because there's tons of stuff out there saying just the opposite - lower weight and higher reps for women...

I would like to view both sides.

These are a couple of sites and people that I have come to trust over the years.

Straight To The Bar: Another forum, also an article database dedicated to different forms of strength training for health purposes, rather than pure aesthetics (kind of the opposite of bodybuilding.com)

Testosterone Magazine: Unfortunately cluttered with crude humor and supplement ads, but they host articles written by a number of trainers and coaches well-respected in strength circles. Many of them run their own blogs which are far more user-friendly and accessible: Dr. Jonny Bowden, Eric Cressey, Alwyn and Rachel Cosgrove, and Cassandra Forsythe.

Stumptuous: A women-lifters' blog about women lifting heavy things. I don't think guy writers exist on the site (at least last I checked). Also covers nutrition, general health, and women's health.

I hope you find these useful!

Anderson02,

I like Tandoor's approach and do it myself. Beware though that heavy lifting is really the realm of experienced weightlifters or people with trainers. Basically people who can control the movement of the exercise. If you have a hard time controlling the movement you expotentially increase the chance for injury. You also have to notice that Tandoor is frequently chaning routines to offset plateaus.

What I want you to think about are your goals. Do you want to gain muslce mass? Get that model's body? Or just lose weight? Once you have your goal, then you set your workout regiment around the goal.

What I see in your workout is that you are killing your legs and getting Ab workouts in. I would continue the pace for another week to get your metabolism up....then switch things up. I would recomment adding some upper body movements such as push ups, tricep dips, clean jerks, etc while cutting back to three times a week on the Abs (increase the work out time to 20 minutes).

Thanks gungac2

You are right, I don't focus on my upper body at all really. I do some curls and shoulder lifts as part of the lunges workout and wear wrist weights while walking but I do not have a dedicated upper body workout. I assume a lot of women do this that carry their weight in their hips and thighs. My abs and waist are actually pretty good but I like to work them as I see results quickly there. I am looking to slim down and firm up. I do not want any real muscle defintion - just firm if that makes sense.

anderson02,

Muscle definition is controlled by fat loss. Since it's relatively hard to lose fat on the arms (compared to hips and thighs), you won't have noticeably bulging arms, unless you go way beyond your fat loss goals. Muscle only grows in two ways, like I described above, so I'm still convinced that going heavy with fewer reps is more likely to build the hard, dense ("firm") muscle than anything else. The best part is, if you feel you're getting too "defined" you just have to scale back the weight you're using by a little bit and you reach a happy maintenance level.

Well I don't skip the upper body workout so much because I am worried about building mass, but it's more of a time thing. If I only have 30 minutes, I want to focus on the part of my body that needs the most work. I know you can't spot reduce and that working all muscles creates an all over calorie burn...I just have trouble getting out of the mindset that I need to work my trouble areas to see results.

With time being an issue, I have a few suggestions that will take some time to get used to. What I included with treadmill walking was an upper body routine. Now you may need a few more pounds of weight than your walking weights, but I found this highly effective, as a man, for toning and lean muscle mass. For a woman I think a 2 or 5lb dumbell set would work fine. Basically the work out is like this;

Start up the treadmill and warm up until you are in your usually walking routine...I would say about 5 minutes.

Then as you walk, do bicep curls with the dumbbells alternating arms to your pace for a minute

Then switch to tricep extensions (hold weights at waist with arms slightly bent and elbows pulled back, then extend weights backwards by bending at elbow to a straight arm position behind you...not very far behind you) to your pace

Then front lateral rises (Raise your arms from a hanging position straight out to about eye level...like to a steering wheel position) to your pace.

As you walk keep going through the cycle changing arm motion every minute for as long as you can. Once you can go through the three movements 5 times (15 minutes) do the movements for 2 minutes for a total of 30 minutes. And then once you can do this go for 3 minutes. This will help you build the lean muscle mass you are looking for and these movements will help with overall stretching.

The super bonus...workouts like this have been scientifically proven to increase caloric burn by over 150%....so that 350 calorie burn walk just turned into a 525 calorie burn :)

But don't feel limited to 2-5lbs if you feel you can do more! Also, for triceps, I'd recommend overhead extensions if you do this treadmill routine. Push the weight up over your head so your arm locks out, then gently lower the weight back behind your head while keeping your upper arm vertical. Use your other arm for support if necessary, holding your weight arm near the elbow. Then move to the "pace" as described in the previous post.

I feel like this is a better triceps movement because it places less stress on the elbow joint. Kickbacks were really uncomfortable for me, now I avoid them entirely.

Definitely agree T...There are a bunch more exercises that can be done....like alternating shoulder presses. Being 6'4" I have to phase out those overheard movements or else prepare myself for repairing a ceiling...lol.

Do the shoulder presses as Seated shoulder presses. No more worries about the ceiling! :) I always do tricep presses seated. I also do concentration curls seated and resting my elbow on my knee. Tandoorichicken and myself are always telling women to not fear the weights. You will not get bulky but you will look more toned.

About tone vs. bulk
 

I've mentioned this in another post, but read New Rules for Lifting and New Rules for Lifting for Women. Each of these books will dispel a number of myths concerning weights, tone and bulk, that people seem to have. Heavy lifting is a great fat burner, just as good as the machines at the gym. You will not get bulky, especially as a women. Based on the information out there, lifting is an almost perfect exercise for every aspect of good health. These books have dozens of workouts to choose from depending on your goals and body type. Interval training on the machines is best to lost fat, sprint for a minute, walk two, or crazy incline for a minute, walk two, or heavy resistance on bike for a minute, regular for two.

i love to lift but for some reason (more so genetic reasons) i tend to; I won't say bulk but I find that if i lifted as often as I wanted to I end up feeling large...i did this during a year in school and the following year a colleague was like you were so buff last year. so I tend to stick with plyometrics 4 days a week (i.e. i do a lot of soccer drills and jumps) to tone and use light weights (5-10 lbs) on my upper body 2x a week. as one member mentioned, I'm not sure if that is the right thing to do but it has worked in the past and well working now. However I have been working out non stop (well with the exception of the reg. scheduled days off) for 10 years...I'm serious...even when I'm sick I get some sort of exercise in. Since 2001 and even then I was doing sports in school so probably more than that....and I'm now starting to feel the consequence of over training. Anyways so I've been debating the option of switching to a 4 day a week workout plan vs. 5....bc at the end of the week it equals out. Anyways so my workout consists of 4-5 days of cardio with plyometrics and 2 days of upper body strength with free weights with a 1600 calorie plan. I recently went back on this plan fully to get back in shape for soccer! oh and YES I definitely do upper body as I'm on the treadmill walking on an incline...or walking stairs...A)it saves me time so I don't have to take another 15 minutes after cardio to do upper body and B) I guess it burns more calories :which I believe as I heart a heart rate monitor which confirms this with an increase HR when I do these moves!

I am a woman and I lift... I prefer it over cardio, but I do my cardio twice a day...

anyways... who wants to be a skinny fat girl! When you lift weights you tone up and burn more calories. if all you do is cardio you only burn calories while your doing the cardio once you step off the treadmill thats it. But when you lift weights you build muscle and the more muscle you have the more calories you burn and not just while your doing the exercise you burn calories all day!

Why do they tell women to lift light with high reps? Because women are afraid to bulk up... Thats not gonna happen. Your gonna get a tighter more leaner look. I do 12 rep max... if your starting out I wouldn't try to do heavy 6 rep max because form is extremely important when it come's to lifting. so if your lifting heavy and you compromise form you will injure yourself. NO swinging like you see some people do at the gym. Keep your core strong.

i lost the first 75lbs just doing a westside split: upper and lower body once a week each for max strength and another time for max speed. Total 4 weight lifting sessions.

After that the weight loss slowed to a crawl as I was unable to make any more mass gains on a caloric deficit (deadlift was at 455, squat 365 and bench 285). I slowly lost 10 more lbs in the span of a few months and 2 weeks ago I decided to change it up, now I dropped all lower body work in favor of endurance training. I'm running 6 miles 5x a week and doing three upper body workouts (with a focus on muscle maintenance) a week. I've already dropped 7lbs.

Compound moves - stay around 3-5 reps for 3-5 sets. Isolation work (curls, triceps extensions, etc) - do a couple of sets of 10. The important thing is that you push yourself, if you aren't getting lightheaded after your last set of squats or deadlifts then you're probably wasting your time. Obviously a lot of beginners are in the mental state of "I can't" so they have to take a few months to work up from doing "power walks" to once weekly doing an actual workout that resembles a training session until they can eventually train 4-5x a week. I personally train 8-10x a week but I have a great sense of knowing when to back off and avoid overtraining, so I wouldn't advice this to other people.

My suggestion is that higher reps with lower rate will work more on a balanced tone and "firmness" that people seek. Lifting heavier weights less repetitions is better for building bulkier muscles.

I would suggest jogging or some other kind of anaerobic activity combined with some lower weight high repetition lifting and a sensible diet should help you get the weight off in time.

Sometimes I wonder why this myth is still floating around. Muscle only grows or shrinks; regardless of what type of weight training you do, it's going to grow. If you do higher reps to exhaustion, however, you're not really working the muscle tissue itself. What you're doing is training the energy system and depleting intramuscular glycogen. Your body compensates for this by trying to stuff even more glycogen into the muscle (increasing capacity for work), which in turn causes more water to be pulled into the muscle (called sarcoplasmic hypertrophy). This makes the muscle appear more full and "toned," but you really haven't increased the metabolic advantage of the muscle.

Lifting heavier weights for fewer reps directly taxes the muscle fibers themselves. The body responds by adding more fibers, which are the contractile units that enable you to lift the weight (myofibrillar hypertrophy). The muscle doesn't actually grow in size that noticeably, but strength skyrockets. Muscles that look dense and hard are usually ones that have been built this way. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy creates bloated muscles that just aren't as great to look at.

For example look at the difference between a bodybuilder like Dexter Jackson (sarcoplasmic) and the gents from the movie 300 (myofibrillar). Which ones look like they could actually build a brick wall with their bare hands?

preparin for a 5k
 

I have seen the post for coach to 5k run. I don't run yet, but would like to get there eventually. I would like to know what people do to prepare and how to start. when is it a good time to exercise outside. I have to in med mornings, 1030 0r 1100 am and sometimes at late evenings. is this good to do this at different times? can I please get some input on this. :):cool::confused:

I have not personally done the couch to 5k but I have never read of anyone having a bad experience. When you exercise is less important than just exercising. If you are trying to lose body fat then cardio first thing after waking has been shown to be the most effective. If you are trying to build muscle cadio after weight lifting is best. Any exercise is better than none no matter what time you do it. We all work with limitations and time constraints. Do the best with what you have. Good luck.

In order to have any long term benefits, any UT2 work should be exceeding 1 hour, and UT1 work should really be in excess of 30minutes. Anaerobic work also shouldn't last much less than 20minutes, I find. When doing anaerobic work, I do it in intervals- something like 1 minute max effort, 30seconds light, and repeat until the time reaches at least 20mins.

I row for at least 12 hours a week. I also tend to get two 1 hour UT1 ergs in, at a speed of roughly 15 km per hour. More often than not, I also do a couple of 2km test ergs. I also try to get in at least two 2 hour circuit sessions in; this involves cardio, (medium with fast reps) weights, and core strengthening exercises. Occasionally I'll do heavy weights, but only to test my current level of strength; they don't work well for me as strength training.

right? I think that until the "myth" of women bulking with weight training will cease once it has been proven to the individual person experiencing this feeling. For instance in order for me to start lifting heavier weights i would have to be A)pounds lighter than I am now bc then I don't get the omg i've gained weight reaction when I start to...well gain mass...well swell. B) someone gives me a suggestion and workout and swears by it. otherwise I think there really are women out there who have more testosterone just there are more men out there who have difficult getting the tone look as the guy next to him at the gym. to those who experience this feeling, go with what works for you...i go back and forth all the time...i've been hearing the "women can't bulk" myth since 2001 (high school) and each time i hear it i say yay! and then start lifting...but then i find that i do feel bulky and friends have told actually told me i look buff! not what I wanted...so then i cool off by using light weights and plyometrics and i slim down....

DB, do you find that when your friends say that you look "buff" they say it in a way that means its a bad thing? Because honestly, I don't mind women with a bit of muscle... Victoria's Secret models train with heavy weights and do compound movements like squats and deadlifts. Do this: pick 3-4 different lifts, out which at least one should be a compound movement like squat, deadlift, or bench press. It's perfectly alright if you can't use a lot of weight at first. Do each exercise for no more than 5 reps, no more than 5 sets. You can decide how many sets you want to do for each. It won't feel like a lot (won't feel like you did "enough") but as long as you feed your body enough protein the fat that you carry will melt off.

I'm not saying this just because it's how I work out and I swear by it. I'm saying it because I've told at least half a dozen people and they've experienced something similar. You might be predisposed to carrying a little more muscle than the next girl, but is that really a bad thing (no)? Trust me, you're not going to look like Iris Kyle without some serious chemical help. :p

I am soo sick of this myth.. I lift and have been lifting for a long time... and the fact is I am a whole lot smaller! I am not a skinny fat chic. I am toned which makes you look a whole lot better.
I love the fact that I look strong. Im in a gym full of people and the girls are on the treadmills, and the weight room full of guys. I love being able to lift like the rest of them. Don't get me wrong I do cardio 2 times a day but I would rather be In the weight room.

Stop saying girls will get bulky if they lift!

@Dianna
 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I found this helpful because I have always been scared to lift and get 'bulky.' I am going to start taking a body pump class because just like your gym, my gym is separated with the girls on the treadmills and the guys by the weights. I am not ready to enter the weight room, so I hope Body Pump works!

I am not overweight, but I have no definition. I hope weightlifting is the way to go!