Female trying to gain muscle tone?

caurinus wrote: »

Good for you -- natural muscles on girls are hot!

If you've never lifted weights before, the easiest way to get started is to use the machines. But they are limiting -- once you start getting stronger they're not ideal for your joint health. I would recommend you hire a trainer to teach you to do freeweight exercises like barbell squats, deadlifts, bench press, and so on, because you won't be limited by the equipment. Having an experienced person watching to make sure your form is good is really important.

This is a pretty good program for getting started, it will give you a good overall balance, hitting all the major muscle groups and giving you good looking balanced muscle development. Some people recommend lower reps at higher weights (like 5 sets of 5 reps), but I think 8-10 reps is the best for beginners -- you will still get good strength and muscle growth, with less risk of injury.
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/the-beginner-weight-training-workout-routine/

What are unnatural muscles?

I started doing Insanity 5 weeks ago and it is giving me great muscle definition without gaining weight. I eat 1500 cal a day. I think its a great program because it builds muscle and is a cardio workout but no equipment is need.

I do a lot of body weight/resistance training and BodyPump (weights). I'd say Google some body weight routines and start there - add weights if you want more definition.

You are definitely going to have to change your meals if you want go from losing to gaining. Carbs and fat are going to help. You will gain some fat along the way to building muscle, and you have to be prepared for that. Don't be afraid!

Hi there, I understand your issue of gaining fat while trying to build your muscle mass. What you need to do initially is have a body fat analysis done so that you know what your lean body mass - fat mass is so that you can then establish a daily caloric intake that will support muscle gain and limit fat gain. I understand that your trying to muscle up an not bulk up, so if you don't know what your daily caloric intake should be (the only accurate way to get to this point is to know how much lean body mass you have) then you can never gain muscle without also gaining as much as, or more fat.

Here in our facility we use an anthropological lbw / fat testing method which is very non invasive and as easy as measuring as accurately as you can... your wrist with the tape measure running over the bony protrusion, your forarm at the widest point, your waist running the tape measure in a straight line at belly button height, your hips running a tape measure around the very top of your hip bones, and weighing yourself first thing in the am upon rising and having gone to the bathroom and completely naked. Knowing these measurements and your naked weight we then run them thru a program and can pretty accurately determine your LBW (lean body weight) and your fat weight. From there with some additional calculations we can figure out your BMR (basal metobolic rate, the rate at which your body burns calories while laying on the couch doing nothing but not sleeping), factor in your activity levels and give you a pretty accurate caloric need for the day and what you should take in for adding muscle to your frame while keeping the fat gains to a bare minimum.

One also has to difference between strength training and hypertrophy training (muscle building) which is what you want.

If you want to send me your measurements I would be happy to figure out your daily caloric needs, broken down into carbs/proteins/fats for you and offer up some advice as to how to go about implementing a hypertrophy training program.

With the right nutritional plan, adherence to a regular hypertrophy training program, adequate rest, a good positive mental attitude and a view to the future there is no reason why you cannot put on good quality muscle mass and keep the fat levels to a bare minimum.

This will not happen in a week or a month but you should be in this for life and not looking for any quick fix, for if you are then you can expect to put on plenty of fat with your muscle gain.

However you decide to go about your muscle gain, all the best and even if your not looking to get more muscular keep exercising and training hard to stay fit and healthy.