Am I getting bad advice from my gym?

Find a new Gym

CatherineElizabeth13 wrote: »

Everything I've read on here and online in general suggests that women should heavy lift.
The advice for woman as overweight as myself seem to be to lift heavy from the start, don't wait until you're close goal weight as it will help to prevent muscle loss through deficit eating and help with skin sagging.

Am I right so far?

Yep!

CatherineElizabeth13 wrote: »

So I had a discussion with the guy who owns my gym (his wife is a champion body builder). He told me he absolutely won't allow me to do high weight low reps as women should only do low weight high rep.
To me it seems a bit counter productive based on what I've read on here. And I'm not sure his wife would agree with his thinking on women lifting.

I would like to hear peoples thoughts.

<Tannoy Announcement>New trainer required at the squat rack</Tannoy Announcement>

He laughed? Patronizing *kitten*. find a new gym.

Find out who trains his wife and use that person.

If you have the book, you don't need a trainer. Just get started on your own. Start light, add weight progressively.

You don't need a trainer -- check out programs such as StrongLifts 5x5 (that's what I use) -- start lifting and increase as you can and keep lifting -- and lift heavy things, not those little pink dumbbells.

You don't have to train high weight low rep either. How low is your rep count?
I prefer staying between 12-16 myself, depending on what part of the body I am working.
But I do also enjoy tabata and other forms of exercise where I will squat with weight for 45 seconds not counting reps. And I have seen tremendous strength and endurance results from that approach as well.

He sounds condescending, and that sucks. But the thing about nutrition and fitness is that everyone thinks they have the perfect answer, and everyone else is wrong. On my fitness journey I have found that everyone is so different, that finding what your body reacts the best to, and finding what you LIKE to do is more important than anything else. Because if you're loving what you do, you will continue doing it, and that is what matters. Consistency above everything.

Also always keep in mind that nutrition, diets and fitness is an INDUSTRY. It is there to make money from people like us. So we have trends like HIGH REPS LOW REPS THIS KIND OF REPS THOSE THINGS UHHH LIFT HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY SQUAT SQUAT SQUAT. You know. While the most important thing is. Work out. Eat sensible. Find what you love. Live it. Become it!

The guy sounds like he is working on outdated ideas along the lines of low weight, high reps = toning. He also sounds remarkably unprofessional.

However...

It is clear you could get great physique and fitness results using a low weight, high rep programme (classically, anything up to 15 reps but I have seen suggestions recently that even up to 30 reps could work well - don't quote me on the exact rep range though as this is from memory).

Alternatively you could get great results from a high weight, low rep programme, a body weight programme, a kettlebell programme etc. You could also get great results from not doing any lifting right now and deferring it until you have lost a chunk of weight (given your starting weight is quite high according to what you tell us.)

The key here is not so much lifting heavy but rather working with resistance.

Up to you really as to what you would prefer, what you enjoy, what your ultimate goals are and what the most efficient means of achieving those goals would be.