Women strength training... for real

I missed this. I just started reading The New Rules of Weight Lifting for Women and it insists that even women don't need a ton of cardio to get the body they want. Another blog I read (by OP I think) said cardio is really just to help with calorie deficit. I can lift and eat 1700 or I can lift, do cardio and eat 2300.... I chose cardio.

I missed this. I just started reading The New Rules of Weight Lifting for Women and it insists that even women don't need a ton of cardio to get the body they want. Another blog I read (by OP I think) said cardio is really just to help with calorie deficit. I can lift and eat 1700 or I can lift, do cardio and eat 2300.... I chose cardio.

Are their benefits to cardio aside from creating a larger calorie deficit?

While I am interested in becoming more toned and lean, I also want to be able to run around, goof off, and walk up stairs without getting winded. Could I get those results by lifting alone? Or should I mainly lift with a side of light cardio?

My suggestion is the latter. I happen to have a very active job...which is part of what allows me to remain well rounded without improving my cardiovascular health via direct exercise (that and living at 5000' elevation). Cardio is worth it for heart and lung health, but is totally unnecessary in my opinion for fat loss.

I missed this. I just started reading The New Rules of Weight Lifting for Women and it insists that even women don't need a ton of cardio to get the body they want. Another blog I read (by OP I think) said cardio is really just to help with calorie deficit. I can lift and eat 1700 or I can lift, do cardio and eat 2300.... I chose cardio.

Are their benefits to cardio aside from creating a larger calorie deficit?

While I am interested in becoming more toned and lean, I also want to be able to run around, goof off, and walk up stairs without getting winded. Could I get those results by lifting alone? Or should I mainly lift with a side of light cardio?

Re: reps--12 reps seems to be my "mental" limit now that I've gotten used to (hooked!) on lifting heavy for 6 to 8 reps. I'm on the last stage of New Rules of Lifting for Women now and it's got a component where it's 15 to 20 reps. It's killing me! I plan on starting Rippetoe's Starting Strength program after that and I'm so looking forward to low reps/high weight.

I am by no means qualified to speak on this, but that sounds like a brutal schedule! From what I have heard from numerous fitness professionals, more is NOT more when it comes to exercise, at least in terms of getting lean and strong, if that is your goal. I have heard that too much intense exercise can elevate cortisol levels, which causes us to hang on to body fat, which is counter to what most of us here are looking for. I'm guessing that doing strength on those days is enough and that strength plus Insanity might be too much, but I guess I'm interested in what people more "in the know" have to say.

You could definitely get by with 1 upper body day, 1 lower body day, and 1 total body day if that's what you'd prefer.

And the lower intensity cardio is the stuff that isn't going to use up a lot of 'fuel' (not to be confused with calories... I mean recuperative fuel). So in theory, you can do this more frequently. Assuming it's not marathon level stuff, you can do some jogging (steady state, tempo runs, farteks or whatever you like) pretty much every day. Though I do like one day of complete rest. If I had to throw out a number... I'd say 3-5 days per week.

Now if you're also hooked on this high intensity conditioning stuff... I'd definitely limit that to 2 days per week. Remember, you're dieting. Which means you're recuperative abilities are compromised. There's less food and nutrients coming in the door to effect recovery.

So maybe 3 days of the lower intensity cardio and 2 days of the higher intensity stuff.

I don't know much about insanity... but assuming it's high intensity circuits... I'd say that's way too much work.

More importantly though... what are your goals. There are no right/wrong ways to structure things without taking context into consideration.

Insanity is high intensity, extreme cardio. It's as its name says, it's insane. That combined with running has been brutal but I run in the morning and do insanity in the evening so it hasn't been too difficult. Now with adding in more strength, yea it could get brutal. My goal is to get down to a healthy weight (whatever that may be but currently aiming for about 140-145 but that is subject to change - I currently weigh 171). I also want to build lean muscle and tone - don't want to be "skinny fat". I still want to look feminine but strong. Think Beyonce. I'm a very curvy girl and that won't go away so I'm not trying to be skinny or look like that zuzanna girl that was mentioned earlier in the thread.

Thanks

Well that's good to hear. Curves are good where I come from!

Look, it's like this...

You want to gently nudge the body into dropping fat and adding muscle. It should be a smooth and relatively easy process. It isn't always, but that's the idea. That starve and train to death approach is the metaphorical equivalent of taking a jackhammer to it in the middle of an earthquake.

I'm not sure people really understand how profoundly the body reacts to stress, and how it responds. When you chronically diet and jack up energy output, yes there's an interval where you do ok. But keep it up too long and you crash. We need to forget about this whole 'beating your body into submission' mentality that seems to be floating around.

It seems to be ingrained in our culture - building a good body has to hurt.... more is better... harder is better... blah blah blah. It's just not true. And this mentality is ONE of the variables that feeds the yo-yo dieting phenomenon you see so many people subscribing too. Because there is real physiological mechanisms at play "under the hood" when you over stress the body. Like I said above... it can work to a point... but then you crash.

To put it in very understandable terms... you only have so much 'fuel' to use. Once you run out of it, you can run on fumes for a bit... but then you stall out. Knowing this... you MUST chose your fuel use wisely. Make a hierarchy of fuel expenses that mean the most in relation to your goal.

1. You want fat loss... so obviously a calorie deficit is required. And a calorie deficit is a form of stress... so that's one fuel use.

2. You want more than simply fat loss... you want to look good while doing it. So you know you need to do what you can to maintain lean body mass. So second in line on the hierarchy would be strength training. In your case... 2 days per week of full body training would likely be ideal.

3. After that... you'll have some fuel left for cardio/conditioning. Numbers 1 and 2 above are really all that you *need* for attaining your goal. By eating less than your body needs you'll lose fat. By lifting weights correctly, you'll maintain muscle. But the cardio/conditioning will allow for you to a) improve other health/performance metrics and b) maintain a calorie deficit more easily.

But you don't need inordinate amounts of it. At all. And this is where a lot of people tend to screw up. Call it cardio craziness or whatever... but people love to over do it on the cardio or circuit training front. I'm guessing it's because it provides immediate feedback that lets you know you're doing work - jacked up heart rate, sweating, burning in the muscles, etc.

But we need to learn to be more selective with 'doing work.' It needs to match the changes we're trying to derive in our bodies.

You can't just brute-force the weight off. When you do too much, You start cutting off and screwing up the regulatory systems with that kind of crazy dieting and exercise. Having fat come off is the LAST thing you're body is after when it's just fighting to stay alive. No, people who do too much aren't on the verge of death. But our body's regulatory systems are very sensitive and complex... and when you back it into a corner by eating too little and exercising too much (disregarding energy availability) some annoying things can happen.

I view things very simple.

- Lift weights 2-4 times per week (occasionally more, but we're talking a baseline starting point, not what I'd use in someone that's built up over time).

- Split, program design, and other such trivia is largely irrelevant, so long as it's designed intelligently and each of the big groups is getting hit at least twice in a given 7-day period (again, a starting point, not an immutable law).

- Emphasize basic exercises, with some accessory isolation-type work thrown in as individual needs dictate. This means your squats, deadlifts, pulls, presses, etc, are the mainstays.

- Focus on using heavy loads, which means typically the use of reps in the 5-10 range. Sometimes heavier, sometimes lighter, but again as a generic baseline that's where to put your foundation.

- Metabolic conditioning-type work, which includes aerobic and anaerobic (interval) types of cardio, is at best an accessory to dieting. It works as a calorie sink, and improved work capacity is always a good thing, but it's not the make or break.

- Focus on overall management of fatigue and recovery. This is VERY critical on a diet.

- Diet will rule above all else for losing fat. Weight training will preserve muscle mass. Limited cardio will help skew partitioning in a somewhat positive way. The rest is all up to diet and your genetic tendencies towards fat and muscle losses.

That's it.