Not a big fan of heavy lifting

sokkache

I tend to only do a little bit of machine weights at the gym and spend most of my time doing HIIT intervals while I'm there.

What are some other exercises I can do to keep muscle because I am doing a lot of cardio at the moment?

Would playing a sport like tennis or volleyball be sufficient enough to keep the muscle or should I add bodyweight exercises to increase the resistance?

FitnessLover001

Honestly I believe sports and cardio machines all aid in muscle because your body is in motion and that builds strength. However, weight machines do help out greatly with "Toning" if you want to call it that. I was just like you . I used to do SO much cardio and a little bit of weights, and I recently decided to do more weight training as well as cardio, and I feel a lot better actually and I feel my muscle strength more now that I do weights than I did before! Weight training does a lot of good to your body. I don't think you have to become a heavy lifter if you don't want to, but adding a little more weight training will help you out! I do it 3 times a week and cardio 6 times a week!

jiffer72

I think many women have a misconception that lifting heavy weights will bulk them up and make them look like a man. That is far from the truth. Those women who look bulky like a man spending MANY hours in the gym everyday. For you to firm up your muscles you need to challenge them with weights. You need to lift heavy enough weights to exhaust the muscle for your muscles to tone up.

I used to do a tiny bit of weights and mostly cardio and once I started seeing a personal trainer several years ago and he convinced me to start lifting heavier weights. I am so happy he did. My weight loss starting coming off quicker and I started to see my muscles firming up. I look far from anything from a man. My muscles are toned and firm but not bulky.

My personal trainer said the reason I started loosing more weight with lifting vs doing nothing but cardio is because you body continues to burn calories at a higher rate longer after your workout with strength training then cardio. It was something like 4 or 5 times longer. This has been a success for me because I have lost a 120 pounds.

DamePiglet

I do some cardio, weights and body weight exercises and I've been really happy with my progress. Body weight exercises are excellent.

sokkache

I'll explain a little more about my exercise routine. I play tennis 2 hours a day 5 days a week and on the weekends or sometimes after I play tennis, I go to the gym or a trail to do HIIT intervals.
I've tried free weights but it just bores me, it's not something that I would like to do on a routine basis, just like running for an hour on a treadmill which I hate. I only like exercising when it's quick like when I do HIIT intervals for 20 minutes or I'm playing a sport.

Is my current routine of HIIT and tennis good enough to keep muscle? Are there other exercises could I do besides free weights/machine weights to maintain or possibly gain muscle?

DamePiglet

There's a book called "You Are Your Own Gym" by Mark Lauren that has some great body weight exercises. I have it on iBooks and some of that stuff is killer!

Also, have you tried doing some Pilates-type workouts with an exercise ball? I really enjoy that. And I find that those things help my flexibility, too.

One word of caution: I hope you don't have your calories set really low. If you are trying to go VLCD, you probably will lose more muscle than you'd like.

ETA: just looked at your diary... Yeah please don't run for an hour on the treadmill!