Strength Training that avoids bulking?
Options
Replies
-
jennjune2014 wrote: »This seems to be a common myth with women. It takes steroids or a significant amount of nutrition and training to get that kind of bulk/muscle built. I have been lifting five days a week for a year. It has enhanced my distance running. Athletic with some curve is my goal.
k number 1 neither of these happen jsut from lifting....smh...I wish people wouldn't post this crap.
2.FarewellBlues wrote: »@jennjune2014 I'm under no misconceptions. I've been lifting regularly for over a year. Athletic with some curve is not my goal, performance in Taekwondo is.
@TresaAswegan Thanks! I haven't heard of the Texas Method but I'll look into it - hopefully it can help me change things up. I first came to weight lifting on principles geared towards hypertrophy - splits, progressive overload, and all that. I think it was good for giving me a base but I want to go more sports-specific now, and while there is some it seems a lot harder to find good information on this type of strength training. I know there must be other people on this site with similar goals and more experience at it than I.
If you want performance in a martial art but be strong do body weight exercises with increased difficulty.
For example push ups, then uneven, then one armed then ring push ups etc.
search convict conditioning.2 -
FarewellBlues wrote: »
Well I own a tape measure, and also eyes. I see and measure more muscle. Or a higher volume of muscle. As I've tried to establish, I don't really care what the "bulk" effect is from - inflammation, more muscle, whatever. I know it's not fat; I have calipers and have been shown how to properly use them. It makes me slower in TKD, and I'm already close to my weight class cutoff. I don't know why this is difficult: I'm not saying I'm going to look like Arnold, ever, even with steroids. Even if I had a sex change. I'm saying I gain more easily than many people and I want to minimize this while maximizing strength-to-weight ratio.The likelihood that you easily gain muscle, without steroids, is very very small. How are you even determining such a thing?
This is suuuuuper helpful, it would take me forever to compile and research a list like this on my own.
I'm reading up on all the programs.
People have pointed out that eating at a slight deficit will be helpful ... yeah I agree. I do tend to eat a little under maintenance for most of the week, then have a day where I'm eating more and it's enough to balance out the week. So I guess I can reduce that day by a bit.
To point out, none of the bold will measure muscle. Inflammation and/or the few lbs of water weight willt come with lifting, due to the breakdown of muscle (its your's bodies reaction to help rebuild muscle... so there might seem to be a fullness). I tend to carry 2 or 3 lbs; a lot of women I know tend to carry up to 5, especially around TOM. That has been consistent regardless if I did strength based or hypertrophy; btw, even strength based workouts can cause hypertrophy because it's driven off total volume.
If you need to meet weight and you are towards the top end of a weight class, cut carbs for a few weeks (pre competition) and after weigh in, you eat a bunch of carbs. That is what we did in our TKD and BJJ competitions.1 -
FarewellBlues wrote: »Thanks all, these are good suggestions. We definitely focus on plyometric exercises for conditioning during TKD training, but perhaps I should add more to my outside routine. Ya know, "jump more if you want to be a better jumper" and all that. I'm also not sure about the carryover of powerlifting to TKD, but I'm sure it's worth a try, and doing new stuff is fun anyway
Well, I'm not sure what my input is worth. I'm 57, eating at a slight deficit near goal weight for some months now and have zero desire to bulk.
I've incorporated the 5x5 program into my weekly workout. My strength lifts are the usuals, bench, squats, DL and OHP, along with pendlay rows. My strength gains have been pretty noticeable, as well as stability and endurance, with very little, if any, bulking.
Like I said, for what it's worth.
This has been my experience also. Getting stronger, lifting more, looking better/stronger without getting "bigger". Eating at, or slightly below, maintenance, 3 days SL5x5, three days cardio,(alternating) one day rest.0 -
bcalvanese wrote: »Less weight, more reps, and a lot of cardio.
less typing, more reading- and lots of learning.5 -
Do a program built for strength- eat at a slight deficit or maintenance.
I'm a professional belly dancer- appearance is part of what I sell- so I can flux in weight to an extent- but my issue is less about "big" and more about 'cut'- no one wants a super cut dancer.
so- I have to be careful of that- I train for strength- I'm fighting to get bigger- but I focus on food to keep my appearance in check.0 -
Hey, not sure if anyone mentioned this website yet, but https://breakingmuscle.com has a bunch of different free training programs geared towards people in various athletics (including martial arts). I'm sure there are people on that site with wisdom towards the goals you're setting 1
-
Bulking is from a caloric surplus, not a training program. You're simply not going to gain mass of any sort not matter HOW you lift if you're not in a surplus.0
-
FarewellBlues wrote: »@TavistockToad I didn't say it was by accident. I'm not a novice to weight lifting, and I've cycled through periods of maintenance or higher calories versus lower calorie periods where I'm trying to lose fat. There are many people who have a hard time putting on muscle despite a calorie surplus and lifting program, there are others for whom it's comparatively easy - but in any case a muscle size gain doesn't always correlate with a strength gain. For some people the same number of muscle fibers will fill a comparatively larger volume. I'm asking how to gain/maintain strength while minimizing this volume increase.
@Mycophilia that's a great first-order approximation, but again I'm not really asking how to avoid gaining muscle. I'm asking how to minimize the volume of any muscle I gain. I also don't want to lose much of the strength I currently have, I've comfortably maintained my weight for the past several months, so I'm looking to tweak my training more than my nutrition.
I hear you, girl. I'm the same way. People are hysterically quick to condescend to you.
I noticed that I dont put on as much mass when I'm just slightly carb depleted. So I will go low carb leading up to a race, and cut weight. And then when I add enough carbs for race performance, I only do that for as many weeks as absolutely necessary. For marathon for instance, I train 3-4 month cycles. I will go low carb for month 1 and steadily increase carbs to support the longer miles.
It's tough because you can't maintain a deficit forever...especially when you have some other athletic performance goal that would be adversely affected by a caloric deficit. So I have to play around with the numbers quite a bit to keep muscle mass off when I want to be lean for running, but need enough calories and carbs to support the pace and volume I'm doing.
2 -
I should also add that low carb will help with water weight too. So, if you are dealing with some inflammation from training (which I know I experience about once a week), low carb will reduce that. One gram of glycogen will retain 3-4 grams of water, so if you reduce carb intake enough hit your glycogen stores, you can reduce your water weight. That might not have a direct impact on inflammatory weight gain, but it will reduce your baseline water weight.0
-
Eat slightly below maintenance.0
-
OP, you're right to focus on what you can do for neural adaptation versus muscular adaptation. You can't obviously do all of one or the other, since they work together. But unfortunately, I don't have a lot of guidance for you. This isn't something I've spent much time with and I am much more successful at fine tuning my physique with dietary adjustments.
For a brief search, I found this... but you've probably already read it or similar
https://breakingmuscle.com/learn/how-to-get-stronger-without-getting-bigger2 -
bcalvanese wrote: »Less weight, more reps, and a lot of cardio.
less typing, more reading- and lots of learning.
Less typing, less reading, and lots of doing.0 -
This morning, I was talking it the Sig O about the overall tone and utility of these forums. His thesis is that facebook killed the forum. He mentioned that he gets way better advice from real athletes and experts on a few key pages he follows. Apparently they are carefully curated and moderated by the owners to eliminate the nonsense... and you can get far more specific advice. I have no experience with this, and see pretty poor behavior on fb as well... but perhaps you can find some sport specific groups to join and follow. You might get better notes there.
Beyond the overall tone and attitude I see here (from some), I notice that this site is primarily concerned with overall health and fitness. It's not populated with a lot of active members that are serious athletes. Body composition seems to be the #1 goal here, and many people dont know how to offer advice outside the confines of a "body composition" mindset. You can get better tailored advice by calling out similar people in the title. Try something like "Martial Artists - How to Improve Strenght While Maintaining Weight" or something like that.1 -
bcalvanese wrote: »bcalvanese wrote: »Less weight, more reps, and a lot of cardio.
less typing, more reading- and lots of learning.
Less typing, less reading, and lots of doing.
I can promise you unless you're a full time professional fitness trainer or athlete- you do not do more than I do. So if you're implying *I* need to do "more doing"- I can promise you- it's not me who need to do more *doing*.
3
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.9K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.8K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.7K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 398 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.8K Motivation and Support
- 7.9K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.3K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 975 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions