Weight Lifting Advice

swimmersgirl

Hey guys! So I used to lift weights a lot with my high school swim team, but now that I'm in college I'm on my own. I haven't been very consistent, but this month I've been able to go twice a week.
Usually I use dumb bells to do bicep curls-shoulder press (8 reps, 12.5 lb), rows (8 reps, 20 lb), back tricep things, squats. Sometimes chest press (8 reps, 12.5 lbs), lat raises (8 reps, 5-7 lbs), lunges.
My goal is to lose weight/ gain muscle/ train for the Tough Mudder race.
It's recommended that I be able to do 6 pull-ups in May... I cannot do a single pull-up. I have been practicing hanging on pipes in my basement and doing negatives. I also started using the lat pull-down machines and the assisted pull-up machine.
Does anyone have any advice?
Should I be doing heavy weights with less reps or lighter weights with more reps? How easily should I be able to do a pull-up with the assisted pull-up machine? What exercises will strength the muscles I need to be able to do pull-ups? What other dumb bell exercises can I do?
Thanks!

Troublemonster

As a swimmer you should have pretty thick shoulders I would imagine. Your shoulders will probably love to get back into training but you need to start lifting bigger weights. Especially for tough mudder, you're going to need some serious fitness for that thing. Lifting heavy will tax your body and challenge your muscles and help you achieve the change you want along with an appropriate diet.

When I trained up for SWAT I started from a position of being out of shape and unable to pull-up but I went at it and hit the assisted pull up machine until I didn't need it anymore. Then I just kept plugging away on the real bar until I surpassed my goal and continue to train pull ups today.

The best way to learn to do pull ups is to do them. Like I said, use the machine until you can do 1 unassisted. Then do three sets of one. Then go for 2 and three sets of 2. And always go to failure on pull ups, get your one but go for another. Get your two but go for a third. That is how we progress.

You could google the armstrong pull up method as well, it is a pretty aggressive training program specifically focused on pull ups but it involves a butt-load of pushups too. I tried it for a while but found it too time consuming to work into my normal workout.

geekyjock76

First, you're going to have to drastically up calories (from your previous thread) if you wish to attain these goals because 900 is way too low based on your high activity level - it's probably close to 60% below your actual TDEE. If you wish to reduce fat mass, aim to eat about 300 calories below your TDEE.

Gaining muscle requires a calorie surplus as opposed to a deficit. Thus, you will have to do it at a separate time from cutting. To do a bulk, you'll have to up calories to the maximum amount until your weight truly becomes stable with very minor and expected fluctuations - this will be your actual TDEE. Once you have that number, you can add about 200 calories, most of which will go to muscle gain, although some will go to fat gain. For a woman, you can realistically gain 1 lb of actual muscle per month. However, there is no limit to how much fat you can gain. This is the reason for small surpluses and short bulk periods.

Most people have to cycle through the bulk-maintain-cut periods a few times to recomp their body composition to where they reach a favorable lean body mass-to-fat mass ratio. You can read more about bulks and cuts here:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/general-philosophies-of-muscle-mass-gain.html
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/setting-the-deficit-small-moderate-or-large.html

If you have access to an assisted pull-up machine, keep using it but don't give yourself too much assistance. Aim for three sets for 8-12 reps, max, where you are struggling to complete the final rep. Many rowing exercises will help as well, including: body weight rows and bent over rows. You also engage your bicep and forearm muscles with pull-ups so it's important to train them as well - hammer curls are an example of a predominantly forearm exercise, though it does incorporate the biceps as well. With that said, I would not neglect any body part and you should aim for total symmetry for your entire body so you do not develop muscular imbalances that can lead to injury.