Women strength training... for real

stephyy4632

great thread bumping for later so I can read more.

So far I`ve really only worked with weight machines should I also include some free weight work? or will I be ok just going threw the machines at the gym ( I don`t have a trainer )

You'll be "ok" using machines. I'd suggest learning the basic barbell exercises though. Pick up Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength book and DVD. It won't disappoint.

thank you and I will look into those

gracemleone

Also, keep in mind that you can't pick a weight that will be appropriate for all movements. Each movement, depending on how much muscle mass is in play, is going to have it's own appropriate weight to use. Think of an overhead press compared to a deadlift.

I did my first workout yesterday and that's exactly what I was thinking when doing the deadlifts and the bent over rows.. I'm gonna need a heavier weight for sure.

I'll say this. I never do circuit training with any of my clients in the beginning. Form is the first thing that goes out the window when fatigue sets in, and that's not conducive at all for learning these movement patterns.

About a year ago I did a Jillian Michaels DVD for a few days and like you say, when I was too tired from the cardio, my form sucked, and doing both at the same time was tiring and discouraging, so I never even tried strength training for a long time afterwards. A few months ago I tried strength training again without the circuit training and actually liked how I felt during and after the workout, so I know circuit training is not the way to go for me even though it might be great for some.

Definitely no need to train until failure.

I outlined some very specific recommendations in this blog article I posted:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/stroutman81/view/resistance-training-foundation-19725

I read your article a few days ago when I was trying to put together my routine and it's been very helpful, thanks.

Based on your articles, some online research and Cris' advice, here is what I' doing at the moment:

Squat movement- squats or lunges 5x5

Hip hinge movement- straight leg deadlifts 5x5

Horizontal push- Bench press 5x5

Horizontal pull- Bent over rows 5x5

Vertical push- Lateral raises 5x5

Vertical pull- None, I need to get a pull up bar or a cable of some sort

Core- Bicycle Crunches 8x3

As Cris suggested, I have this set up as Workout A and Workout B and I am alternating between the two.
What else can I do for a vertical pull exercise other than using a bar or cable? And I feel like I'm lacking core exercises.

Thanks for taking the time to respond and for all your articles and suggestions, really very helpful.

nz_deevaa

Thanks for your responses.

I'll keep up with Pump for a while longer, and then move up to the 'real' weights section of the gym when I'm more confident at the gym.

I have noticed a couple of the buff 20-something's seem to do Pump as their 'warm-up' and then go on to much heavier lifting afterwards, and one of them always smiles and says hello when I see him at class, so maybe he'll be able to so me the ropes.

stroutman81

I did my first workout yesterday and that's exactly what I was thinking when doing the deadlifts and the bent over rows.. I'm gonna need a heavier weight for sure.

Because of this, you'll need to eventually pick up a pair of adjustable dumbbells that go up to at least 50 lbs. Or join a gym. Or alter your exercise selection by finding movements that are harder to execute and thus dictate the use of a lighter weight.

Based on your articles, some online research and Cris' advice, here is what I' doing at the moment:

Squat movement- squats or lunges 5x5

Hip hinge movement- straight leg deadlifts 5x5

Horizontal push- Bench press 5x5

Horizontal pull- Bent over rows 5x5

Vertical push- Lateral raises 5x5

Vertical pull- None, I need to get a pull up bar or a cable of some sort

Core- Bicycle Crunches 8x3

As Cris suggested, I have this set up as Workout A and Workout B and I am alternating between the two.

That's an awful lot of volume each workout considering you're dieting. Plus, I'd likely alternate some rep ranges.

An example might be...

Day 1

A - Heavy Squat Movement - 3x4-6
B1 - Light Unilateral Hip Hinge - 3x10-12
B2 - Planks - 3x30-60 seconds
C1 - Heavy Horizontal Press - 3x5
C2 - Light Vertical Pull - 3x8-12

Day 2

A - Heavy Hip Hinge - 3x5
B1 - Light Unilateral Squat - 3x10-12
B2 - Side Planks - 3x30-60 seconds each side
C1 - Heavy Horizontal Pull - 3x5
C2 - Light Vertical Push - 3x8-12

That's not set in stone at all... just one idea. Gives you reduced volume given that fact you're dieting, hits all the major muscles, and gives you more variety in stress given the unilateral work and variation in rep ranges.

What else can I do for a vertical pull exercise other than using a bar or cable?

I'd pick up a pullup bar. I don't like the doorway ones much either but they're better than nothing. Or get some bands so you can do pulldowns with those. You could also try dumbbell pullovers.

And I feel like I'm lacking core exercises.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking your core needs more volume than other movements. A lot of people fall into that trap stemming from the "spot reduction" craze and it's simply false. For the most part... one exercise for your core is just fine.

stroutman81

Thanks for your responses.

I'll keep up with Pump for a while longer, and then move up to the 'real' weights section of the gym when I'm more confident at the gym.

I have noticed a couple of the buff 20-something's seem to do Pump as their 'warm-up' and then go on to much heavier lifting afterwards, and one of them always smiles and says hello when I see him at class, so maybe he'll be able to so me the ropes.

I think you'll find that many guys are more than willing to lend a helping hand. Especially if you catch them when they're first getting there or when they're just finishing up... that way you're not interrupting their workouts. Remember, you have the male ego on your side... they love showing their knowledge of strength training to anyone who's willing to listen.

Just be cautious as a lot of guy's 'knowledge' ain't so knowledgeable, if you catch my drift.

Givemewings

bump

deninevi

I have a q: How heavy is the long barbell?

crisanderson27

Hey Steve, I'm curious...why the lower volume when you're dieting? I've continued with the 5x5 and it's worked well. I'm not saying it's the best way...but I'm curious what the benefits of lowering the total volume would be?

stroutman81

I have a q: How heavy is the long barbell?

45 lbs

stroutman81

Hey Steve, I'm curious...why the lower volume when you're dieting? I've continued with the 5x5 and it's worked well. I'm not saying it's the best way...but I'm curious what the benefits of lowering the total volume would be?

You're looking at it in the wrong light. It's not why is it better. The question is does the extra volume while dieting make a difference? At the end of the day, especially in the case of a woman, you're not going to building that much, if any, muscle while dieting.

Of course there are the statistical outliers who will.

And if the individual has never really trained this way before or if they're carrying a lot of fat, sure, they might add a decent amount of muscle while dieting.

In general though, it's not going to be substantial. And if it's going to happen, it's likely going to happen on a lower volume approach just as likely as it is to with a higher volume approach.

When dieting though, recovery ability is diminished. Especially a smaller woman who doesn't have a high calorie need to begin with. When recovery ability is diminished... it's very critical to be economical with the application of stress. Apply just enough stress to get the adaptations we're after. Doing more can cause more harm than good. Not always. But quite often... especially in women.

Someone like you might be able to do the higher volume and not realize any negative impacts. But that's not to say you couldn't have had the same level of adaptation with a reduced volume approach.

At the end of the day... I'm very inclined to save the higher volume approaches for when it's time to actually focus on muscle growth... to bulk up.

If the reduced volume will net the same results as the higher volume, which tends to be the case the vast majority of the time, that means we can opt for the lower volume approach leaving more recovery ability in the tank. We can use that recovery ability on other things to benefit the goal.

Tired, watching crossfit on espn (unbelievably), and paying half attention to what I'm typing. Sorry for typos and hopefully that made some sense.

crisanderson27

Hey Steve, I'm curious...why the lower volume when you're dieting? I've continued with the 5x5 and it's worked well. I'm not saying it's the best way...but I'm curious what the benefits of lowering the total volume would be?

You're looking at it in the wrong light. It's not why is it better. The question is does the extra volume while dieting make a difference? At the end of the day, especially in the case of a woman, you're not going to building that much, if any, muscle while dieting.

Of course there are the statistical outliers who will.

And if the individual has never really trained this way before or if they're carrying a lot of fat, sure, they might add a decent amount of muscle while dieting.

In general though, it's not going to be substantial. And if it's going to happen, it's likely going to happen on a lower volume approach just as likely as it is to with a higher volume approach.

When dieting though, recovery ability is diminished. Especially a smaller woman who doesn't have a high calorie need to begin with. When recovery ability is diminished... it's very critical to be economical with the application of stress. Apply just enough stress to get the adaptations we're after. Doing more can cause more harm than good. Not always. But quite often... especially in women.

Someone like you might be able to do the higher volume and not realize any negative impacts. But that's not to say you couldn't have had the same level of adaptation with a reduced volume approach.

At the end of the day... I'm very inclined to save the higher volume approaches for when it's time to actually focus on muscle growth... to bulk up.

If the reduced volume will net the same results as the higher volume, which tends to be the case the vast majority of the time, that means we can opt for the lower volume approach leaving more recovery ability in the tank. We can use that recovery ability on other things to benefit the goal.

Tired, watching crossfit on espn (unbelievably), and paying half attention to what I'm typing. Sorry for typos and hopefully that made some sense.

EXCELLENT answer and I very much appreciate it. Grace is quite petite, as is another lady friend I've been helping out with some advice (based on my own experience, and in large part, on this thread). I'll definitely talk to my other friend about lowering at least a few of her sets to a smaller number of sets, and perhaps alternating.

Thanks man.

gracemleone

Hey Steve, I'm curious...why the lower volume when you're dieting? I've continued with the 5x5 and it's worked well. I'm not saying it's the best way...but I'm curious what the benefits of lowering the total volume would be?

Thanks for asking that, I was about to ask the same thing.

EXCELLENT answer and I very much appreciate it. Grace is quite petite, as is another lady friend I've been helping out with some advice (based on my own experience, and in large part, on this thread). I'll definitely talk to my other friend about lowering at least a few of her sets to a smaller number of sets, and perhaps alternating.

Thanks man.

I agree, excellent answer and definitely makes sense to me.

One more question:
If I decide that I want to add some muscle, is there an ideal body fat range one should get to before attempting to gain muscle?

TanyaDL

I'm so hooked on this thread!!!!! Thanks for sharing your expertise about Ladies lifting weights! I hope the myths people have will be debunked.....

stroutman81

Hey Steve, I'm curious...why the lower volume when you're dieting? I've continued with the 5x5 and it's worked well. I'm not saying it's the best way...but I'm curious what the benefits of lowering the total volume would be?

You're looking at it in the wrong light. It's not why is it better. The question is does the extra volume while dieting make a difference? At the end of the day, especially in the case of a woman, you're not going to building that much, if any, muscle while dieting.

Of course there are the statistical outliers who will.

And if the individual has never really trained this way before or if they're carrying a lot of fat, sure, they might add a decent amount of muscle while dieting.

In general though, it's not going to be substantial. And if it's going to happen, it's likely going to happen on a lower volume approach just as likely as it is to with a higher volume approach.

When dieting though, recovery ability is diminished. Especially a smaller woman who doesn't have a high calorie need to begin with. When recovery ability is diminished... it's very critical to be economical with the application of stress. Apply just enough stress to get the adaptations we're after. Doing more can cause more harm than good. Not always. But quite often... especially in women.

Someone like you might be able to do the higher volume and not realize any negative impacts. But that's not to say you couldn't have had the same level of adaptation with a reduced volume approach.

At the end of the day... I'm very inclined to save the higher volume approaches for when it's time to actually focus on muscle growth... to bulk up.

If the reduced volume will net the same results as the higher volume, which tends to be the case the vast majority of the time, that means we can opt for the lower volume approach leaving more recovery ability in the tank. We can use that recovery ability on other things to benefit the goal.

Tired, watching crossfit on espn (unbelievably), and paying half attention to what I'm typing. Sorry for typos and hopefully that made some sense.

EXCELLENT answer and I very much appreciate it. Grace is quite petite, as is another lady friend I've been helping out with some advice (based on my own experience, and in large part, on this thread). I'll definitely talk to my other friend about lowering at least a few of her sets to a smaller number of sets, and perhaps alternating.

Thanks man.

The research suggests that we can lower volume (while keeping intensity up) by at least 2/3 in order to maintain a quality such as strength or muscle. We know that it takes more work/volume to build a quality than it does to maintain it. And since maintenance is the primary thing we're shooting for while dieting... we might as well use maintenance level volume in order to free up room for other kinds of work.

What the research suggests definitely pans out in my experience over the last 10+ years, so you can take that for what it's worth. I generally don't cut down by 2/3 though... typically it's more like 40-50%.

stroutman81

One more question:
If I decide that I want to add some muscle, is there an ideal body fat range one should get to before attempting to gain muscle?

That's a fantastic question.

Calorie partitioning is going to play a critical role here, which is simply the ratio between where your body stores calories in relation to fat and muscle. Obviously, in an ideal world, all calories above those needed to cover energy costs are shuttled to lean body mass and none to fat. On the flip side, in an ideal world, when calories are below energy costs, ideally the calories are taken solely from fat leaving muscle unscathed.

In reality, this simply isn't the the case. Which is why I'm always harping on doing muscle preserving workouts (strength training) and eating adequate amounts of protein.

Genetics definitely play a major role in deciding how calories are partitioned. So does diet and training. And drugs.

Lyle McDonald wrote an excellent piece on this very topic that I can't seem to find right now. But the heart of the concept is that when you diet, the fatter you are, the less your body is going to tap into muscle. The leaner you are, less your body is going to tap into fat.

It's that whole biological hardwiring I discussed in my Nutrition 101 article (that you need to read if you haven't).

And on the flip side, when in a calorie surplus (muscle building phase), naturally lean individuals will partition more calories to muscle than fat where as a fat, overfed person won't be so fortunate.

Notice the word "naturally" though.

People that are naturally lean are not the same as folks who dieted down to the same lean levels. The dieted down folks are contending with the associated metabolic adaptations associated with prolonged dieting. The naturally lean folks are not.

So for a dieted down lean person, the partitioning is actually going to favor fat gain, generally speaking.

Which is why, coming off a diet, it's best to sit at maintenance for a couple of weeks to let some of the metabolic adaptations reset (not all of them). Then start focusing on muscle gain. At what percentage for a woman should you start considering this? I forget what Lyle recommends in the article I referenced above... but in my experience its in the 18-22% range.

stroutman81

I'm so hooked on this thread!!!!! Thanks for sharing your expertise about Ladies lifting weights! I hope the myths people have will be debunked.....

You're welcome.

crisanderson27

This leads me to another question, which might be a bit in depth for this thread. If so, feel free to disregard it.

We know that heavy strength training promotes growth hormone production...which in part, tells your body to preserve muscle, and burn fat for energy. There are other exercise forms, as well as eating styles that magnify this hormonal production. How big of an impact can this have on calorie partitioning as you described it?

Meaning, can we use (natural!) growth hormone production to help tell our bodies to produce less fat, and more muscle?

stroutman81

This leads me to another question, which might be a bit in depth for this thread. If so, feel free to disregard it.

We know that heavy strength training promotes growth hormone production...which in part, tells your body to preserve muscle, and burn fat for energy. There are other exercise forms, as well as eating styles that magnify this hormonal production. How big of an impact can this have on calorie partitioning as you described it?

Meaning, can we use (natural!) growth hormone production to help tell our bodies to produce less fat, and more muscle?

In short. No. There are bunch of diets out there that promise such awesomeness... but in the end... our bodies are much smarter than us.

FitJ1210

Bump

FitJ1210

I don't know much about insanity... but assuming it's high intensity circuits... I'd say that's way too much work.

More importantly though... what are your goals. There are no right/wrong ways to structure things without taking context into consideration.

Insanity is high intensity, extreme cardio. It's as its name says, it's insane. That combined with running has been brutal but I run in the morning and do insanity in the evening so it hasn't been too difficult. Now with adding in more strength, yea it could get brutal. My goal is to get down to a healthy weight (whatever that may be but currently aiming for about 140-145 but that is subject to change - I currently weigh 171). I also want to build lean muscle and tone - don't want to be "skinny fat". I still want to look feminine but strong. Think Beyonce. I'm a very curvy girl and that won't go away so I'm not trying to be skinny or look like that zuzanna girl that was mentioned earlier in the thread.

Thanks

Well that's good to hear. Curves are good where I come from!

Look, it's like this...

You want to gently nudge the body into dropping fat and adding muscle. It should be a smooth and relatively easy process. It isn't always, but that's the idea. That starve and train to death approach is the metaphorical equivalent of taking a jackhammer to it in the middle of an earthquake.

I'm not sure people really understand how profoundly the body reacts to stress, and how it responds. When you chronically diet and jack up energy output, yes there's an interval where you do ok. But keep it up too long and you crash. We need to forget about this whole 'beating your body into submission' mentality that seems to be floating around.

It seems to be ingrained in our culture - building a good body has to hurt.... more is better... harder is better... blah blah blah. It's just not true. And this mentality is ONE of the variables that feeds the yo-yo dieting phenomenon you see so many people subscribing too. Because there is real physiological mechanisms at play "under the hood" when you over stress the body. Like I said above... it can work to a point... but then you crash.

To put it in very understandable terms... you only have so much 'fuel' to use. Once you run out of it, you can run on fumes for a bit... but then you stall out. Knowing this... you MUST chose your fuel use wisely. Make a hierarchy of fuel expenses that mean the most in relation to your goal.

1. You want fat loss... so obviously a calorie deficit is required. And a calorie deficit is a form of stress... so that's one fuel use.

2. You want more than simply fat loss... you want to look good while doing it. So you know you need to do what you can to maintain lean body mass. So second in line on the hierarchy would be strength training. In your case... 2 days per week of full body training would likely be ideal.

3. After that... you'll have some fuel left for cardio/conditioning. Numbers 1 and 2 above are really all that you *need* for attaining your goal. By eating less than your body needs you'll lose fat. By lifting weights correctly, you'll maintain muscle. But the cardio/conditioning will allow for you to a) improve other health/performance metrics and b) maintain a calorie deficit more easily.

But you don't need inordinate amounts of it. At all. And this is where a lot of people tend to screw up. Call it cardio craziness or whatever... but people love to over do it on the cardio or circuit training front. I'm guessing it's because it provides immediate feedback that lets you know you're doing work - jacked up heart rate, sweating, burning in the muscles, etc.

But we need to learn to be more selective with 'doing work.' It needs to match the changes we're trying to derive in our bodies.

You can't just brute-force the weight off. When you do too much, You start cutting off and screwing up the regulatory systems with that kind of crazy dieting and exercise. Having fat come off is the LAST thing you're body is after when it's just fighting to stay alive. No, people who do too much aren't on the verge of death. But our body's regulatory systems are very sensitive and complex... and when you back it into a corner by eating too little and exercising too much (disregarding energy availability) some annoying things can happen.

I view things very simple.

- Lift weights 2-4 times per week (occasionally more, but we're talking a baseline starting point, not what I'd use in someone that's built up over time).

- Split, program design, and other such trivia is largely irrelevant, so long as it's designed intelligently and each of the big groups is getting hit at least twice in a given 7-day period (again, a starting point, not an immutable law).

- Emphasize basic exercises, with some accessory isolation-type work thrown in as individual needs dictate. This means your squats, deadlifts, pulls, presses, etc, are the mainstays.

- Focus on using heavy loads, which means typically the use of reps in the 5-10 range. Sometimes heavier, sometimes lighter, but again as a generic baseline that's where to put your foundation.

- Metabolic conditioning-type work, which includes aerobic and anaerobic (interval) types of cardio, is at best an accessory to dieting. It works as a calorie sink, and improved work capacity is always a good thing, but it's not the make or break.

- Focus on overall management of fatigue and recovery. This is VERY critical on a diet.

- Diet will rule above all else for losing fat. Weight training will preserve muscle mass. Limited cardio will help skew partitioning in a somewhat positive way. The rest is all up to diet and your genetic tendencies towards fat and muscle losses.

That's it.

So much GOOD info here.. thanks!