5lb dumbells ok?

suzyy721 wrote: »

@mom23mangos
i like how you broke it down, it's starting to make more sense now. I just want to know one thing though.. is all the working out at home, squats, lunges, bicep tricep curls all a waste of time? wud it help a little? cause im doing it every other day with 5lb pair dumbbells and i feel the pain too. And im doing 3 sets/12 reps for each exercise.

Suzyy, NO, it is definitely not a waste of time--it is the best thing you could be doing. If you don't work out and add 20 lbs, it will likely be mostly fat; if you do work out, it will be a mix of fat and muscle, so you definitely want to work out.

The reason we are focusing on progressive lifting is that you build muscle by tearing down the existing muscle, eating enough protein for rebuilding, and giving it some time to heal itself. Muscles get bigger as the micro-tears are repaired. I am probably butchering this explanation, but think of it as a road that has been fixed for potholes and now there is a little extra asphalt on the top. Right now 5-lb weights are enough to create the micro-tears, but at some point your muscles will be able to handle them no problem so the muscle will no longer be built. Even bodyweight exercises will create muscles--with push-ups or jump squats/jump lunges, you are pushing a substantial amount of weight. But at some point you will be adapted to your body weight. Like, guys who can bust out 12 pull-ups in a row start wearing a weighted belt to keep challenging their muscles.

As you do you 3/12 routines, are you able to do all sets through to completion with good form? If yes, then you need to bump up the weights. That is the rule of thumb that will let you know when to progress. By the time you are getting into the 3rd set, you should be struggling until you reach failure, which means your form starts to fall apart and wobble, not that you drop the weights or anything. When I reach the last few lifts in each of my sets, my veins and muscles are popping and my face is red and I am quietly growling so I don't grunt too loud.

Also, you have been pointed a couple of times to a list of programs, because we want to make sure you are not spinning your wheels with a self-designed program or some such; the best programs are going to focus on the basic compound moves: DLs, rows, squats, etc. More accessory type work is important too, like bicep curls, but even those can be made more powerful by, say, doing a lunge-to-curl.

While you can't control where the fat goes on, you CAN control where the muscle goes on, so eating at a surplus and doing those curls and triceps extensions will build your arms; squats will build your thighs and booty and core. Etc.

If you put on 20 lbs, and half of that is muscle, once you hit a point where you have the weight on that you want, you can then start eating at maintenance and continue your progressive program in order to recomp, or very slowly lose fat and gain muscle at a very slight deficit, but I would focus on getting to the point you want *with weights* so you will have some shapely muscles (possible under more fat than you would want) that you can then work on revealing. This is what will help give you the "toned" look.

A cut is also a possibility, but since you are currently underweight, and we don't know if you have any eating issues, I personally would steer clear of that.

There is a lot of background to know about lifting, and it is a process to build up the knowledge, just like it is a process to build your muscles. So don't get too overwhelmed with the information. The people commenting here are people that have greatly helped me over the past year. I was on MFP for almost half a year before I came to the forums, and the thing that brought me here (even though it was always in my homepage sidebar, but that usually features chit-chat topics I wouldn't touch) was googling what in the actual f--- a "macro" was. So, my knowledge base was very low, to say the least.