Silly n00b Question

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Mediocrates55
Mediocrates55 Posts: 326 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
So I'm no stranger to the diet portion of weight loss, and do my cardio religiously. I'm lifting but I'm not sure I'm going about it properly for maintaining muscle mass while losing. Other women refer to "lifting heavy" for muscle maintenance. Can someone help me out with that term? How heavy is heavy for a beginner? How many reps? What forms? I'm kind of a weakling when it comes to upper body strength and I wear out pretty quickly. I've been using a bar loaded at 30 for upper body things for about a month, 3 sets of 10 reps.

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  • redfisher1974
    redfisher1974 Posts: 614 Member
    edited October 2014
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    Try a little more weight and go for 3 sets of 6, when you can get 3 sets of 6 easy then up the weight 5 lbs and so on.... I'm a dude so this may not work as good for women but if not I'm sure someone will let you know. The idea is being pushed harder and adding weight to your lifts.
  • philwrightfitness
    philwrightfitness Posts: 122
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    You don't have to lift heavy for muscle maintenance. You don't really need to lift particularly heavy for muscle growth either. If your goal is to lose weight and minimise muscle loss then hitting anywhere between 65 and 75 percent of your maximum one rep lift should do it. Stick to compound exercises such as squats bench press clean and press etc and you won't go far wrong. Hit every muscle group at least once a week
  • parkscs
    parkscs Posts: 1,639 Member
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    And just to add, what constitutes "heavy" or sufficient weight for general LBM retention varies from person to person. It doesn't matter if 75 pounds on bench is all you can lift - if that's all you can manage for your target number of reps, then that's sufficient weight. Honestly the easiest thing to do is just follow a beginner program (SL5x5, SS, NROLFW, etc.), which will provide you structure for how many sets, how many reps, when to progress, and so on.
  • yoovie
    yoovie Posts: 17,121 Member
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    Heavy is relative! Thats the great thing about it!

    Pick up a dumbbell, if it's so heavy you can only squeeze out 2 or 3 reps - that's your 'heavy'. Let's say it was the Lat Pull Down machine (this is usually applied to free weights and the barbell area, but Im using this as an example) and let's say it was 80 pounds and you were able to complete 2 and a half reps.

    For a workout on this machine, you now know your 'heavy'.

    You do a few warm up reps. Like 3 or 5 reps at about 50-60% of your max. % reps of 40 lbs, 5 reps of 45 pounds, a few reps at 50 pounds. Now you're all warmed up for this motion.

    You know you can do 60 pounds because you can do 80. So do 5 reps at 60 pounds and then stop. Take up to a minute and then do 5 reps at 70 pounds. Take another shorty break and then put on 80 pounds and do as many as you possibly can. It might be one, after doing all that other work ahead of time. It might be 5 and you might end up whooping at hollering at your PR.

    And next week, go again, and this time, only do a few at 80 pounds, but then see what you can do with 85.

    So heavy is decided by you, and you control your progress to heavier :)
  • Mediocrates55
    Mediocrates55 Posts: 326 Member
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    Thank you for the explanations! That really helps. Anyone have anything to say about the Ice Cream 5x5 routine?
  • yoovie
    yoovie Posts: 17,121 Member
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    its the same thing
  • dbmata
    dbmata Posts: 12,951 Member
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    pincushion14 wrote: »
    So I'm no stranger to the diet portion of weight loss, and do my cardio religiously. I'm lifting but I'm not sure I'm going about it properly for maintaining muscle mass while losing. Other women refer to "lifting heavy" for muscle maintenance. Can someone help me out with that term? How heavy is heavy for a beginner? How many reps? What forms? I'm kind of a weakling when it comes to upper body strength and I wear out pretty quickly. I've been using a bar loaded at 30 for upper body things for about a month, 3 sets of 10 reps.

    Lifting heavy is all about what is heavy for you. What's important though is that there is a load that is getting progressively heavier.

    For me, back in june a heavy high bar back squat was 155#, in fact that was the most I could do for 1 rep without my knee having significant issues. Today, my 1 rep max for a squat is 385, and I'll routinely do 225 for sets of 15-20.

    As for forms, I'm assuming you mean lifts?
    - Squat
    - Deadlift
    - Bench Press
    - Bent Over Row
    - Overhead Press

    Add in some pushups, some dips, some lunges, and some mobility stuff and that's a pretty good group of exercises to start with.

    The key is to increase your load over time, otherwise, you really aren't going to be doing much.
  • missdibs1
    missdibs1 Posts: 1,092 Member
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    The term heavy is relative. It refers to heavy for you aka challenge yourself. Google progressive over load

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