cardio/muscle training ratio

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What is the cardio/weight training ratio. Any suggestions will help. I just do not know what will cause me to gain muscle and what will just tone.
I only want to tone while I lose weight. Any thoughts?

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  • DanWhittaker
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    As a woman you will gain very little in the way on lean muscle mass, as this depends on several things. The most important being testosterone levels, human growth hormone (HGH) levels and protein synthesis. As a woman you produce over 10 times less than men and have much lower HGH levels, which will not get effected by resistance training compared to a males which would. So when you are doing your resistance work you are doing it to maintain current muscle mass and metabolism as well as strength and postural benefits.
    Your cardio and nutrition will determine how "lean" you are (this is a common misused term and actually refers to the elasticity of a muscle). Being "lean" refers to a low body fat, In order to do this you must burn of whatever excess fat levels you currently have. As a female you will want to maintain the lean mass you already have so avoid doing cardio to intense as this can have a detrimental effect on this. I have suggested guide lines below for cardio and resistance training:

    Resistance Training
    Complete 3 sessions a week.
    Whole body workouts.
    Compound exercises (2 or more joints moving in one action).
    3 sets per muscle group
    10-12 reps per set.

    Cardio Training
    4-5 sessions a week.
    40-45mins total time.
    Alternate days between steady duration (60%-70%) of maximum heart rate and intervals at 60%-80%
    Start and progress interval ratios as follows 4-1,7-2,3-1, 5-2, 2-1, 3-2, 1-1 (then reverse the ratios)

    I am a personal trainer that has achieved many great results in weight loss with my clients and have had a lot of experience and experiments with this on males and females a males would be different) and have seen amazing results.

    Hope this was what you where wanting!!
  • jesse19881
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    Thats perfect!! Thank you so much! So helpful!!!
  • Rae6503
    Rae6503 Posts: 6,294 Member
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    You pretty much have to be eating at a surplus to gain muscle weight, as in more calories than it'd take to maintain your current weight. It's not easy. Trust me, I've been trying for 1.5 months.