Why I love Squats, Walking Lunges, etc

Let me just say for those I may have offended, I have NOTHING against gay people, bisexuals, transgenders or anyone... I have a lot of gay friends who I love dearly... but you have to admit, the first thing most people thing of when thinking of Freddie Mercury is his gay-ness? Well, or Queen?

AND in all actuality, I really thought Michael Jackson's sequin red jacket was gay for his time (which is what I was originally referring to! - and I promise I wasn't talking about gay in a "homosexual" sort of way

LOL at least I had the "gay" part right

Fansofsummer: There really was no "program" - I just pretty much quit doing cardio - well except maybe a 5 minute warm up and a 15-20 minute jog when I was finished with my strength workouts. I heard that for every pound of muscle you gain, your body can burn up to 120 more calories per day- So I've been hooked!

My lower body workouts are psycho, but they have worked!
usually a mix of 4 of the following

Leg Extensions
Leg Presses
Leg Presses with your feet at different angles
Squats
Squats with weights
Squats with weights with your feet at different angles - including jumping squats
Walking Lunges
Walking Lunges with weights
Deadlifts
Deadlifts with full squats

That should cover it?

Saksgirl, you say that you stopped doing cardio, almonst. Are you already pretty lean and at your goal weight/size? I just recently started doing some weight traiining and I'm still prob 30/40 lbs overweight. I'm hoping to tone and maybe build some muscle to assist in my fat burn. I'm lifting heavy three days a week and then do cardio on days in between. I know I'm already tightening up because my hubby popped me on the bum the other day and commented on how "tight" it was :happy: !! Unfortunately it still block the sun on a pretty day!! LOL

I'm attempting to stay away from the scale because right now I feel really "puffy" for lack of a better word and I know that if I stay with it it will start to show in measurements but I can't figure out where I need to be on cardio. Limited, alot.......................Any suggestion?

Actually, I quit paying attention to the scale when I realized that I was gaining weight. In my opinion the only negative about strength training is that if you are doing it right, it's NOT scale friendly. I know I still need to lose more "weight," BUT since starting training I've lost 2 clothing sizes and tons of inches. I've toned up a lot. I truely believe that the scale is crap - it's only 1 measurement of what you weigh and truthfully 1lb of dirt weighs the same as 1lb of diamonds! (Yes, that last line was stolen from a post a long time ago!) haha

My suggestion to you... obviously whatever you are doing is working! Especially if your hubby commented on your butt! Keep it up! Mix up your routines too! The only two constants that my trainer has me doing is my 5 minute cardio warm up and 15/20 minutes of intense cardio when I'm finished training and he makes sure that during my training I KEEP MOVING consistantly! It's so easy to get on one machine, do 3 sets and move on... but you should treat it almost like a circuit? Do 1 set on 1 machine, then move on to another and then to another and then to another and then go back to the first and do it all over again! I've noticed that no matter what body part I'm working out, I'm getting an amazing workout because 1. There is no down time so it's almost like cardio (in a way) and 2. I'm able to go heavier because I'm only doing 1 set before doing another exercise.

I hope this helps!!!