Question: Can you gain muscle without lifting heavy weights?

sunshine29225

Or more specifically:

Since starving yourself on a 1200 calorie/day intake will cause you to lose muscle, what benefit do your muscles get from adequately noursihing your body with food and working out (but not heavy lifting)?

shreddin_mama

bump

michellekicks

When you eat less calories than your body needs to do all the things you're making it do, it has to make up the deficit somewhere. Ideally you want to create a modest deficit of 200-400 calories/day by eating that many fewer calories than you're burning and allowing your body to burn fat to make up the difference. When you haven't that much fat to burn or your body is trying to make up HUGE deficits like 1000-2000 calories/day, it has to find other ways to do that... it will burn fat but also metabolize muscle tissue and slow organ function so that it needs less to do what you're asking of your body.

So you need to give your body enough fuel so that you can train hard without your body slowing organ function and metabolizing muscle for energy. The benefit to eating more (while still under TDEE of course) is that you get to maintain the lean mass you have.

Noor13

To really gain muscle mass you will need to lift heavy. You need challenge your muscle, put stress on them, so it will adapt to the stress and grow (while resting). You can do some body weight training but essentially you will need yo lift heavy(not Barbie weights) if you want to gain muscle.

Settuccini

Define "Barbie weights," if you could, please! Right now, I squat with two 20lb dumbbells (thus, 40 lbs) and am curious if this is still considered not strenuous enough.

I can bicep curl with 12 lbs in each arm, but fatigue after 6 or 7 slow reps. Considering I actually do fatigue, I feel like this is a good range for me for now. Am I wrong in thinking this? Am I still lifting ~girly~ weights, or what?

meggyh20

The most important thing is that you are always pushing yourself. What each person can lift is going to be relative to the time they have been lifting and some individual differences. But I started 8 weeks ago squatting 40 lbs and upped my weight over that period to where I can now squat 95 lbs for at least 3x8 reps. So, if you are fatiguing to the point you have difficulty completing your reps, you are likely pushing yourself. Just make sure as you adapt to that weight, you increase so that you're still pushing your limits. Hope that helps!

PLUMSGRL

Or more specifically:

Since starving yourself on a 1200 calorie/day intake will cause you to lose muscle, what benefit do your muscles get from adequately noursihing your body with food and working out (but not heavy lifting)?

ummmm....maintaining muscle mass......:huh:

Raynn1

Define "Barbie weights," if you could, please! Right now, I squat with two 20lb dumbbells (thus, 40 lbs) and am curious if this is still considered not strenuous enough.

I can bicep curl with 12 lbs in each arm, but fatigue after 6 or 7 slow reps. Considering I actually do fatigue, I feel like this is a good range for me for now. Am I wrong in thinking this? Am I still lifting ~girly~ weights, or what?

Barbie weights are usually the 1, 2 and 3 and sometimes 5 pound weights in the nice pink covering you can get at most stores:)
Typically though Barbie weights could be described as anything that is way lighter than you should be lifting.. so it you have zero excertion happning on that weight, for you, then it is a Barbie weight..

What might be a heavy weight to you, could be considered a "barbie weight" to someone else.. but if you are lifting weight that is putting you to your full limit, and you cannot lift one more rep in that set.. then you dont have to worry about lifting a barbie weight:)

HeidiHoMom

I would just like to add that you should always be pushing yourself too. If you spend weeks doing squats with 20 lbs dumbbells then you won't make a lot of progress in the muscle department. Once you are able to consistently do your reps with a particular weight then it is time to move up. Go from 20 to 22.5. You'll be surprised how fast you can move up. If you can do 3 sets of 10-12 then it is probably time to move up. Your last rep you should really be struggling to get that weight up or to do that squat.

kchris41

I had to start out with 2 and 3 pounds weight because they were all I could do. It didn't take long to move up to 5. I'm seeing muscles in my arms that I've never seen in my life, lol.