Women and weight training

DeeDeeLHF

bump to read later.

D

stroutman81

Thank you for this post! I have one question too. Can I do cardio and lifting in the same session? I usually do cardio first for 45 minutes and then lift.

Lift first, cardio last. Reserve your glycogen for strength not cardio.

Like I said previously.... traditional strength training isn't all that glycogen depleting.

I'd prioritize whichever is more important to the individual's goals. Unless the they're doing inordinate amounts of cardio for some sort of performance prep. In that case, if the two had to be performed in the same session, I'd put the cardio first. Read up on AMPk and its effects on mTOR if you're interested in the whys.

Like I always so... there are no absolutes.

stroutman81

Can you gain strength w/o gaining size? I would like to be stronger but not necessarily bigger. Or is that counter productive?

Most definitely. It's absolutely true that a bigger muscle has the potential to generate greater amounts of force. That this doesn't mean in order to get stronger you need to grow bigger muscles. It's important to keep in mind that are muscles move and exert force in response to electrical stimulation from our brains/nervous systems. Via a number of mechanisms (recruitment, rate coding, synchronization, etc) our neuromuscular systems can actually "learn" to be stronger.

Electrical impulses reaching more muscle fibers and a higher frequency of impulses reaching the fibers per unit of time are just a couple of that adaptations that will lead to improved strength in the absence of muscle growth.

melanie_J

I don't have anything to add or ask, I just wanted to let you know that you made my night. Anytime I see the picture that you posted I start giggling uncontrollably. And it's happened a lot this post since a bunch of people quoted and included the picture. I needed this tonight, thanks!

stroutman81

Wow.... my last 2 posts are gibberish. I had half a load on and was 79% asleep, haha. Sorry!

xStellar

I feel like I hit a plateau. Any advice is welcome

At this point, I lost the fat, I don't really want to lose any more weight, I just want to get stronger, have some more definition. I am also terrified of gaining the weight back. I am happy with the way my body looks now, so my goal has changed from weight loss to getting stronger.

My typical work out looks something like this: 30 min or so of weight lifting followed by 20-30 minutes of cardio.
I have split my weight training into four groups. One day back/biceps, chest/triceps, legs, shoulder/abs. I am loosely using the training outlined in Jamie Eason's live fit 12 week trainer. With my work and school schedule I can get to the gym 3-4 times a week tops.

Nutrition: I am trying to get back to eating at maintenance. MFP says that my maintenence is around 1800 cal. After being on a calorie deficit for a few months and changing the way I eat, I often find it difficulty to eat that much without eating crap. I usually end up eating about 1600-1700 cal/day. Sometimes on work days I only end up eating around 1400 calories,and I have a very physical job, so I know I should probably be eating more...

Help?

stroutman81

I feel like I hit a plateau. Any advice is welcome

At this point, I lost the fat, I don't really want to lose any more weight, I just want to get stronger, have some more definition. I am also terrified of gaining the weight back. I am happy with the way my body looks now, so my goal has changed from weight loss to getting stronger.

Ya know, you really have to be careful with this statement. I'm not saying this is the case as I don't know enough about you, but when you say, "I am terrified of gaining any weight back and I want to get leaner but not lose any more weight," you can be setting yourself up for a lot of frustration.

Sometimes the key to reaching a leaner physique is adding a few pounds of muscle, which might lead to a gain in weight.

Point being... who really cares what the scale says if you're rocking the best possible body within your genetic confines?

My typical work out looks something like this: 30 min or so of weight lifting followed by 20-30 minutes of cardio.
I have split my weight training into four groups. One day back/biceps, chest/triceps, legs, shoulder/abs. I am loosely using the training outlined in Jamie Eason's live fit 12 week trainer. With my work and school schedule I can get to the gym 3-4 times a week tops.

The whole 3-4 days per week of lifting and cardio is fine. However, I highly suggest switching your lifting so that you're hitting each major movement/muscle at least twice per week. This can be accomplished with 2-4 full body sessions per week or it could be accomplished with something like an upper/lower split where you're training your upper body twice and your lower body twice.

Gone are the days where we should be looking at things by body part, generally speaking. Instead, we should be looking at things based on movement. For example, I'd like to see you hitting each of the following at least twice per week; squatting variation, hip hinge variation, pushing variation, and a pulling variation. Throw in core work and you're set.

Nutrition: I am trying to get back to eating at maintenance. MFP says that my maintenence is around 1800 cal. After being on a calorie deficit for a few months and changing the way I eat, I often find it difficulty to eat that much without eating crap. I usually end up eating about 1600-1700 cal/day. Sometimes on work days I only end up eating around 1400 calories,and I have a very physical job, so I know I should probably be eating more...

Ya, if you goal is to maintain, you should probably be eating more. Though I don't know your weight so it's hard to say. Typically hunger patterns will adapt based on how you're eating. So while it might be hard to eat enough calories at first, work through it and it'll be easier given enough time.

What's your fat intake at? Given that fat is more than twice as calorically dense as the other nutrients, including more of it in your diet can be an easy solution to bumping calorie intake up. Of course this is assuming you have your other important bases covered such as adequate protein.

More importantly though, you need to figure out what exact direction you want to take your physique from here. If you move to maintenance, it's not likely that anything is going to change substantially in terms of fat or muscle mass. If you want to be leaner, you need to stick with a deficit and focus on preserving muscle. However, getting thinner and thinner isn't always the answer. If a sufficient base of muscle isn't present, it won't matter how thin you get... there won't be enough of the "good stuff" to give you that shape you're shooting for. Which would mean you should focus on building some muscle (calorie surplus) in this next phase of training.

Those are your options.

xStellar

I phrased that wrong.. I am not afraid of gaining weight, so long as it is muscle. I am afraid of gaining fat. Currently I am 17-18% body fat, 5' 7" and 128 lbs. At my heaviest I was 140 lbs, 21% body fat.
I manage to eat around 120-130g of protein most days, 130-150g carbs, 40-50g fat...

I def need to build more muscle. I have seen myself get really thin in the past (lowest has been 120lbs, and on my frame that is way too small) and that is no good.

So, I am thinking of switch to full body routines 3x/week, increasing calorie intake to 2000-2200.

Should I be eating at surplus on both training and non training days? Also to keep in mind I am a nurse, so I work 3-4 12 hour shifts a week, where I am on my feet pretty much all day.. Those are my non-training days

stroutman81

I phrased that wrong.. I am not afraid of gaining weight, so long as it is muscle. I am afraid of gaining fat.

Okay. That's fair. However, when you gain muscle, you're also going to gain some fat. That's the nature of things. In an ideal world, each calorie above and beyond those need for maintenance goes towards building lean tissue. In the real world though, a portion of each calorie above maintenance is going to get partitioned to fat. Most of this is dictated by genetics. The part that's in your control is predicated on what you're doing in the gym and how you're eating.

Put simply... lift heavy stuff and eat sufficient protein.

All of this leads into the concept of going through phases of building up followed by phases of breaking down. In another ideal situation, we lose our excess fat and are left with the body of our dreams. Genetics squash that in the real world. And also, in the real world, obtaining the best body possible typically takes alternating phases where you focus on losing fat while maintaining as much muscle as possible followed by phases where you're adding muscle while minimizing fat gain as much as possible.

Currently I am 17-18% body fat, 5' 7" and 128 lbs. At my heaviest I was 140 lbs, 21% body fat.
I manage to eat around 120-130g of protein most days, 130-150g carbs, 40-50g fat...

I def need to build more muscle. I have seen myself get really thin in the past (lowest has been 120lbs, and on my frame that is way too small) and that is no good.

Well it's nice to hear that you realize this. Many people are too afraid to make that objective conclusion, so props to you.

So, I am thinking of switch to full body routines 3x/week, increasing calorie intake to 2000-2200.

I would jump right up to that level from where you are now. I think I recall you saying that on many days you get 1400 calories in or whatever. To allow your body/metabolism time to adjust, I'd gradually ramp calories up every week or two. Maybe by 10% at a time.

And realize that some water gain is likely during this time. And even more important is you can't negate ALL fat gain while moving into a surplus. It simply becomes a matter of doing the "right things" consistently and finding that sweet spot, calorically speaking, where you're eating sufficient energy to support muscle growth, yet not so much where you're packing away fat.

Which also lends into why I think it's a good idea to "touch and feel" your way into a surplus. Slowly ramp things up gradually.

Should I be eating at surplus on both training and non training days?

There's no right or wrong here. Just keep in mind that it's the overall calorie balance that's going to drive your physique one direction or the other. If you use some sort of cyclical approach where your surpluses are only on your training days, you still have to make sure that you net intake across the week or whatever is a surplus. Meaning your non-training days can't be so low that your net intake at the end of the week is a deficit or even maintenance.

I'm a fan of KISS... keep it simple stupid. Don't muddy the waters until you have to. So my advice would be to slowly ramp calories up... keeping them equal on all days.... until you start seeing progress. From there, you can adjust according to what's actually happening.

Remember, there are 3500 calories in 1 lb of fat. Your weight might be fluctuating by up to 5 lbs but that's not to say you're packing on the soft stuff. You're not dealing with surpluses large enough to lead to fast fat gain.

Also to keep in mind I am a nurse, so I work 3-4 12 hour shifts a week, where I am on my feet pretty much all day.. Those are my non-training days

Which is all the more reason to keep things steady across the week.

Jeff92se

Can you gain strength w/o gaining size? I would like to be stronger but not necessarily bigger. Or is that counter productive?

Most definitely. It's absolutely true that a bigger muscle has the potential to generate greater amounts of force. That this doesn't mean in order to get stronger you need to grow bigger muscles. It's important to keep in mind that are muscles move and exert force in response to electrical stimulation from our brains/nervous systems. Via a number of mechanisms (recruitment, rate coding, synchronization, etc) our neuromuscular systems can actually "learn" to be stronger.

Electrical impulses reaching more muscle fibers and a higher frequency of impulses reaching the fibers per unit of time are just a couple of that adaptations that will lead to improved strength in the absence of muscle growth.

I get the theory. What's the exercises to accomplish that? I like what the other guy said about loading up a smith machine.

amethyst1

Thank you so much for posting - you are awesome!

Black_Swan

Ahaha I love the KISS method!!!
All I know is I have to be doing things right, since I can see some ab definition for the first time in my life, and I open stuff for my friends now (bottles and stuff like that, haha!). Its so nice to use the strength in "real life"! I might be slim BUT IM TOUGH muhahaw!

EDIT: also I love when Im the only girl weight lifting and I feel like "You see, girls can do this too!!"

stroutman81

I get the theory. What's the exercises to accomplish that? I like what the other guy said about loading up a smith machine.

All strength training will accomplish it. If you want to avoid size while increasing strength though, I'd simply focus on very low volume training. Isometrics are fine, but I wouldn't recommend them for this... at least not solely. Isometrics only increase strength within a confined range of motion. So at whatever angle you exert force from, you might see an increase in strength 15 degrees +/- of that specific joint angle. So in theory, in order to do it right, you'd need to train multiple joint angles of the same movement isometrically. Which is just too time consuming.

Hypertrophy is a product of progressive overload using sufficiently heavy weights with enough volume. Remove the volume (and calories by the way) and you'll get increased strength without the corresponding increase in muscle mass.

gsager

Thank you

BabyDuchess

thanks for the info....I started out doing complete body training and was told by a trainer that I should split it into body parts but I actually liked the complete body training better and will go back to it.....thanks Steve :flowerforyou:

Ruchell

Bumping so i don't lose track of this thanks for the great info!

stroutman81

thanks for the info....I started out doing complete body training and was told by a trainer that I should split it into body parts but I actually liked the complete body training better and will go back to it.....thanks Steve :flowerforyou:

No problem. The truth of the matter is you CAN make body part splits work. But now how they're traditionally prescribed. And I think you'd be better off with something like I suggested above.

czechsmate

:flowerforyou: Thank you for posting this Joe!!!

I do have one question for you. For people who are just starting out, would you recommend lifting heavy (for us weaklings that would be like, 10lbs and up) or light...like 5lbs or less...?

Yes lift heavy enough so you can do 6-8 reps. If you can do 3 sets of 10 reps, up the weight 5 lbs. If you can only do 3 sets of 4-6, keep the weight as is. This is the general rule of thumb.

Thank you...now I realize I have to bump up my weight, starting tonight!!

xStellar

thanks for all the info. this thread is really helpful.

time to start lifting heavier!

lisaisso

bump

kayx199189

Bump

stroutman81

You guys really need to start yelling at me about my grammar.

Feisty_Red

cardio will not reshape your body...and neither will throwing around 8 lbs dumbbells and doing bicep curls..

sad..but true. Wake up ladies.. barbells=not just a man's toy anymore....

ChristinaBarnhouse

Thank you for this post! I have one question too. Can I do cardio and lifting in the same session? I usually do cardio first for 45 minutes and then lift.

I do the exact same thing and have questioned this as well. I only have about an hour to workout each time.

BTW.... great post!

geekyjock76

I met Jamie years ago: very tiny woman but has a lot of shape and curves due to the combination of muscle mass and leanness. Of course, she is extremely sweet as well.

Feisty_Red

I met Jamie years ago: very tiny woman but has a lot of shape and curves due to the combination of muscle mass and leanness. Of course, she is extremely sweet as well.

Yes...this! Muscles are pretty

Rae6503

Thank you for this post! I have one question too. Can I do cardio and lifting in the same session? I usually do cardio first for 45 minutes and then lift.

I do the exact same thing and have questioned this as well. I only have about an hour to workout each time.

BTW.... great post!

Lift first then cardio. You need the glycogen (carbs) that is stored in your muscles to lift effectively. You can do cardio using whatever is left over (maybe even stored fat which is a win).

MariaMariaM

<---I lift weights, do I look bulky? I don't think so. I have very nicely defined arms, shoulders and legs. The only time you might see some "bulk" is when I am lifting. I am doing the JE Live Fit program and love it.

ZoeLifts

Great post!

I agree with Rae, though, that a lot of (mostly) women have a different definition of bulky than what OP is alluding too. Many think that even the slightest curve in the bicep looks bulky, in their opinion. This blog post from Leigh Peele is one I like to link to a lot that does a great job of revealing what some women (not me) consider bulky, it is pretty enlightening! I encourage you to also check out the followup articles she posts as well on the topic.

http://www.leighpeele.com/bulky-muscles-and-training-females-the-definition

rowdylibrarian

Lots to read later!