Advice a professional female body builder gave me

Being in the gym 3-4 hours a day will not make you bulk. Only eating over what you burn then lifting will do that.

lauragreenbaum148 wrote: »

We're told to go cardio- crazy and to lift lighter weights with more reps. She said that is wrong. Cardio is important, but she said most women put too much emphasis on it. What she said is more important is to lift weights- as heavy as you can comfortably manage for 15-20 reps and to keep building on that.

I'd just like to point out that some of us can only "comfortably manage" lighter weights! My anecdotal evidence is that that's OK, too - something is better than nothing.

I'd say 10 reps and just make sure you're in calorie deficit. Throw some cardio in just for heart health and to burn a few more calories.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

There are a lot of women here that lift.

Especially when starting, lifting heavy = lifting what is heavy for you. I was intimidated for a long time thinking I had to move weight that was heavier than me. Once the penny dropped I started low and built on that.

Have a trawl through the threads on this sub forum, there are some very good beginner routines, lots of advice on how to approach them, and some very friendly people who have been lifting a long time who share their experiences.

Cheers, h.

I was on a deficit (modest) all year and did 5x5. I got smaller. All over. I'm 46, 5'2" and currently 122, down from 137. I have a flat stomach again and muscle definition but I didn't gain muscle 'cuz deficit. You have to eat for and work damn hard to build muscle. I LOVE my muscles (guess I had a good base to begin with). I'm the leanest I've ever been in my whole life. Last Summer I was embarrassed by my body and wore swim skirts to pools and beaches. This Summer? Bikini all the way!

I'd say the following:

For typical "my friend is a bodybuilder and he/she said" advice, it's not bad.

But honestly, without knowing specifics about you, your goals, your preferences, individual limitations/etc, it would be hard to help you find what's going to be best for you.

If I were to make some general statements I'd say this:

The more specific your goals are and the more advanced you are, the more precision you'd need with acute variables like nailing down the best rep range, for example.

If you are a beginner, you'll probably get your bases covered in a pretty large window of rep ranges. Multiple sets of 8, a couple sets of 20, both are going to work if you're a beginner and just looking to get some training. This isn't me saying it's irrelevant, it's just less important if you're the beginner with more general goals.

Things I think are quite important:

1) Are you enjoying exercise? If not, can you change things so that you DO enjoy it?
2) Are you increasing volume or intensity or both over time, regardless of rep range?
3) Are you able to adhere to a reasonable diet that will help you get to your goals?

Finally, so that it doesn't look like I'm changing the context of the post, the main differences you'll see in rep ranges at equivalent relative intensities, a set of 20 taken to failure is not likely to maximally recruit motor units until near the end of the set. A very heavy set of 5 is going to achieve maximal recruitment for all 5 reps most likely. So you could make an argument that heavy training is superior from a motor unit/muscle fiber recruitment standpoint.

But it's not that simple. We know that total training volume (sets x reps x weight) tends to be the most important variable with respect to hypertrophy. It's much easier to accumulate volume in higher rep ranges vs lower rep ranges. It's also much safer to accumulate volume in a higher rep range just from an injury standpoint.

But depending on your level of development and your goals, it might not matter all that much. Anywhere from about 5 to 20 reps depending on the exercise, goals, preferences, etc is probably going to be a reasonable choice.

JoRocka wrote: »

15-20 reps as heavy as you can still isn't heavy. For her it's probably what she needs- but in the world of lifting- that's still very high reps. (And understandably so for a body builder) but really-
0-5 reps is pure strength (one rep max being the upmost in that)
5-10- is the hypertrophy/strength and a comfortable training range
10-15 is moderate hypertrophy- and less strength- still reasonable for training- but you are starting to push into muscle endurance
15+ is pure muscle endurance and you're training to get better at pushing THAT volume of weight- not get stronger.

But she is right- the chronic "cardio is a must" for women. More women should lift and or have a balanced training program.

Yup. To elaborate on why this is true:

The part of a muscle that actually generates force is the collection of myofibrils that contain actin and myosin filaments. It is the myofibrils that, when stimulated, use energy to contract.

Besides the myofibrils, muscle cells contain sarcoplasm, which is basically all the rest of the cell - for example, the part of the cell that supplies the fibrils with energy.

When you work out, you will increase both in some ratio. In general, increasing myofibrils makes the muscle stronger - these are the parts that generate force, and they are very dense. You can gain a lot of myofibril mass without gaining much volume. Increasing sarcoplasm makes the muscle endure longer, and gives the muscle a larger energy supply. Sarcoplasm is mainly water, and this increases the volume of the cell a lot. The big, bulky muscles of a bodybuilder are huge amounts of sarcoplasm, while the denser raw strength of a powerlifter is lots of myofibril mass.

Higher weight but lower reps tends to increase myofibrils more than sarcoplasm, and vice versa for lower weight/higher reps. Again, as mentioned, all weight is relative to your current strength - if you're lifting at a weight that you fatigue after 5 reps, it's "heavy" whether that's 10 lb or 200 lb.

In either case, women don't tend to get "bulky" like a bodybuilder unless they either have a hormone disorder or they are taking performance enhancing drugs, because they lack a male's androgen levels, particularly testosterone. Hell, even males take quite a lot of work (and very often performance enhancing drugs) to get the bodybuilder look.