Strenghting & conditioning...

NEEDLESTIX86

NEEDLESTIX86

New member

MY NAME IS STEFANIE. IM 5 FOOT,136LBS,& 23 YEARS OLD. THIS SUMMER AS OF THE BEGINNING OF JUNE I MADE A LIFE CHANGING DECISION TO EAT HEALTHY & LOOSE ABOUT OR NEAR 35LBS. MY WEIGHT WAS 151 THE END OF MAY WHEN I MADE THE DECISION TO GET THE BALL ROLLING. I AM NOW CURRENTLY 136 TODAY JULY 1ST. IM VERY PROUD OF MYSELF BECAUSE ANY OTHER TIME I HAVE TRIED DIETING & EXERCISING,I HAVE FAILED. IVE BEEN ON THE DIET FOR ABOUT 4 WEEKS NOW. I WALK EVERY SINGLE DAY. I ONLY MISSED 1 SO FAR OUT OF THE WHOLE 4 WEEKS. I DO 4 MILES/WHICH IS EQUAL TO 1 HOUR. I ALSO RUN INTERMITENTLY DURING THAT TIME. THIS TIME I WANTED EVERYTHING IN PLACE TO MAKE IT RIGHT FOR ME SO WEIGHT LOSS WOULD BE POSSIBLE. MY BOYFRIEND IS CURRENTLY DEPLOYED TO AFGHANISTAN & I FIGURED THIS IS MY TIME FOR ME TO MAKE A CHANGE...TIME FOR MYSELF TO FOCUS ON ONLY MYSELF ...PLUS I CANT WAIT TO SEE HIS EXPRESSION WHEN HE SEES ME FOR THE FIRST TIME WHEN I GET TO MY GOAL WEIGHT & MUSCLE DEFINITION. I HAVE ABOUT 25 MORE LBS TO GO THEN IM DONE WITH THE WEIGHT LOSS. WHAT I DO NEED HELP ON HOWEVER IS BUILDING MUSCLE. I USED TO POWERLIFT DURING MY FRESHMAN YR OF HIGHSCHOOL. THAT WAS 8 YRS AGO. I WAS ABOUT 110-115 LBS, BUT NEVER PUT ON THE MUSCLE LIKE I THOUGHT I WOULD. MY BENCH WAS 90 SQUAT:135 DEADLIFT:205. IM NOWHERE NEAR AS STRONG TODAY AS I WAS THEN! LOL HOWEVER I THINK I WASNT ON THE RIGHT "DIET" SO-TO-SPEAK TO PUT ON THE MUSCLE. I ATE WHATEVER I WANTED & DIDNT WORY ABOUT DOING IT THE WAY I SHOULD HAVE...NOW I DONT WANT TO SCREW UP WHAT I HAVE GOING FOR ME. MY NEIGHBOR IS A PERSONAL TRAINER @ A NEARBY GYM & SAYS MY BEST BET IS TO START LIFTING NOW SO I CAN BUILD MUSCLE TO HELP GET MY BODY FAT DOWN & IT WOULD GO FASTER. HE SAID IT'LL AID IN THE PROCESS OF LOSING BECAUSE EVENTUALLY I MIGHT HIT A PLATEU OR START TO LOSE THE WEIGHT VERY SLOWLY IF I JUST KEEP DOING CARDIO. MAKES SENSE I WAS JUST AFRAID OF ADDING MUSCLE AS I WAS LOSING WEIGHT BUT NOT SEEING THE NUMBERS CHANGE ON THE SCALE OR SEEING THE INCHES COME OFF CAUSE THE MUSCLE IS REPLACING THE FAT. HE TOLD ME WHEY PROTEIN SHAKES ARE GOOD AS WELL TO HELP THROW IN YOUR DIET. IF ANY OF YOU HAVE ANY SUGGESTINONS FOR ME I'D STRONGLY APPRECIATE YOUR ADVISE. IM ALSO WONDERING HOW MUCH WEIGHT I SHOULD START OFF DOING IN BENCH SQUAT & DEADLIFT AS WELL AS HOW MANY REPS. I REMEMBER STARTING OFF AT LIGHT WEIGHTS WITH MORE REPS & WORKING MY WAY TO HEAVY WEIGHTS WITH LESS REPS IN POWERLIFTING. I MISS THOSE DAYS & IM READY TO BRING THEM BACK & DO IT IN A WAY BETTER NOTION NOW!!
I LOOK FOWARD TO THE ADVISE, TAKE CARE ALL


~STEF~:biggrinjester:
 
Hi Stefanie! Welcome.

Just a friendly word of advice - on forums, typing in all caps is considered the equivalent of YELLING! :) It also makes your post really hard to read.
 
Welcome to the forum :)

As Kara said, loose the capitals

It is good to see another female powerlifter on here

in the off season I am usually working with high reps (10) which would be a good rep range for you getting back into lifting. what do you estimate your 1rep max is at the moment ? you could work out your beginning training weights from that.

I post my training sessions in my diary.

forget about the shakes unless you are sure that you are not getting enough protein in your normal diet.
 
Welcome to the forum :). I agree with your trainer that its best to just get into the weights now. Who cares if the scale goes up from some added muscle? Muscle does not replace fat so its not like you'll have some gushy stomach made of muscle where you're fat used to be. There's no reason to not to expand your powerlift workout to encompass different back exercises, chest presses and flyes, shoulder exercises, and an array of other leg exercises. Though I must say, deadlifts work your ass like there's no tomorrow. You can also develop nice glutes doing walking lunges with heavy weights. Makes your butt just pop!
 
blancita & trus-

thanks for your post. blancita you gave me some good advise to work with & i appreciate that, thank you :) im not sure how much i can 1 rep max now, but am very curious to find out lol i like the challenge of it all & will let all of you kno how my progress is comming along. my neighbor tony is a PT @ a gym by us. he's going to take me sunday to see if we can set up something for me there. hopefully its affordable, i cant wait! ;)
 
Hi Needles! I was a lot like you in high school Instead of doing the typical classes most of the girls would do I took weight training, and I loved it!! I now believe that's what kept my metabolism roaring when I ate everything in site and never put a pound on.

But a good motivator is sometimes what we need to help us reach our goal and having a significant other that will be coming back to see your new sexiness is certainly one of those. LOL He's going to be so floored and very happy you did it.

Keep on working at, and you will get to that goal I'm sure of it. Good Luck to you, I'll be checking in to see your progress.
Hugs
Kim:waving:
 
Hey thanks Kim!! that was an awesome reply to my post. thanks so much!Thats good we have something in common & that you've experienced weight lifting before. I am doing this mostly for myself, but I am so excited & curious as to what hes going to say & think when he sees me! Hopefully I'll get to my goal of not just losing weight, but buffing up a bit too. I want to have a bangin' bod & cant wait to see results! =) Im not posting any new pics of myself on my myspace or facebook where he can see...i want it all to be a suprise for his return :gnorsi:
 
Hello to all once again...

A little update on myself...
Been goin to the gym ever since last thursday when i signed up. Im really diggin the jacuzzi after my workouts =). Yesterday was my first day of weight trainning. I went with my neighbor who i a pt like i said before. So he had me do a total body workout. I benched a lot more than i thought i could lol yay!! Thats suprising lol thought i wouldnt be able to even bench the bar 45 lbs standard olympic size). I ended up doin like 10-12 reps of just the bar. Then tony threw 2 10's on & i was doing 10 reps of 65...then he threw another 2 10's on & i did like 4 reps of 85. Lol i remembered when i stopped powerlifting my 3 rep max was 90. He was suprised i was still in shape since 8 yrs ago lol. I did a lot of planks for my abs,dumbell work with my arms,& moderate leg work. I ended up pulling a muscle doing walking lunges with the dumbells so i stopped doing them & focused on other parts of my body. Today i went to the gym to do cardio. I ran a mile & 1/2 (15 mins @ 6.0 speed) & powerwalked about 10 mins then did a cool down walk. Then went onto the eliptical for the remainder of the workout for about 30 mins....then went into the jacuzzi of course. Now i feel the soreness all over my body. The cardio today intensified what i did yesterday. Doms (delayed onset muscle soreness) im trying to get as much protein in as possible so i can recover a little bit quicker. Tomorrow i go back to the gym again with tony to lift, but we're going to take it easy cause im sore, plus i have my free pt session with one of the trainers at the gym. I met him thru a friend 2 years ago & hes still working there, so ill be comfortable with someone i already know. I gave him a heads-up i was comming lol so we'll see what he says! Im excited =)

p.s. Just remembered the capslock as i was over half way thru writing this...o well. It happends
 
Woah, that is a lot for a first work-out. I always feel really strong the first day back to lifting but I would never risk pushing myself because I know how sore I will be just doing an easy routine. Not sure why your pt was surprised about your strength as muscles sort of hide when you dont use them, but they come out in full force as soon as you break them out again. They have a "memory" and grow much quicker to be back to their former size from minimal effort. Enjoy your new work-out!
 
Hi Stefanie -

I have a few immediate, random comments based on your first post.

1. I think it's awesome you are taking control of your body and it must be so exciting to do something like this for your man while he's away at war. He's going to be pleasantly surprised when he gets home!

2. There's an important distinction that must be made here - losing fat and building muscle are in competition. In very general terms, the former requires a shortage of energy (calories) and the latter requires a surplus. Typically while dieting (used here to mean losing fat), you want to try your best to maintain muscle while losing fat.

That's what leads to the lean look most people are going for when they say "toning."

What trips people up is a sole focus of the number on the scale. You're not doing this to be a certain weight. Why? Weight is such an arbitrary thing. It measures fat, muscle connective tissue, bone, glycogen, water, bowel matter, etc. What I think you are shooting for, rather than some arbitrary number, is a lean sexy look.

Amirite?

Beginners are special in that they have the capacity to build muscle and lose fat simultaneously with quite a bit of ease. So there may be a time initially where you are accomplishing both goals and that's great. Try your best not to let the scale influence your emotional well being. Accompany the scale with bi-weekly pictures, measurements, etc. These sorts of metrics will paint a much clearer picture than weight alone.

3. Muscle doesn't replace fat, which is related to number 2. A muscle either grows or it doesn't (via numerous mechanisms) and this tissue is independent of fat. By that, I mean if your muscles grow, it's not going to directly affect your fat tissue.

4. Awesome that you powerlifted. And nice numbers for a young woman... that's great!

5. Again related to number two, you're right in that diet is going to be the controlling factor in terms of whether your losing fat or gaining muscle. Hypertrophy (muscle growth) is a very intensive process, energetically speaking. When you're dieting, your body doesn't have enough energy "floating around" to maintain itself (hence the weight loss) so it's not going to make matters worse by adding an energy-expensive tissue like muscle. At least not to any appreciable degree.

6. Your trainer mentioned whey protein. Think of it as food. It's not magic or special in the least. Adequate protein is very important in a diet for numerous reasons. Namely, it's a strong signaler for muscle preservation. It's also the most satiating nutrient, meaning eating a "healthy dose" of it will help keep you full longer. If you're getting adequate protein by way of whole, natural foods... there's really no reason to supplement with powder. If you're not though, powder is a quick and easy way to supplement your protein intake. I use it myself. What's adequate in terms of protein intake? A good ball park is 1 gram per pound of goal body weight.

7. How much weight to start off with? Next to nothing. It doesn't matter that you trained before... for starters it's most important to focus on grooving the motor patterns. By that, I mean doing many reps using very conservative weight (can even be body weight) in order to learn/practice the movement patterns. Adding weight to a flawed movement pattern is the perfect recipe for injury. Once you're confident in all the movements you're doing, then, and only then should you add weight.

How much weight?

Again be conservative. Starting out with something you *know* you can manage for the number of sets and reps you're shooting for is a good idea. If it truly is easy for you this workout, bump up the poundages next workout by some conservative amount. The idea is not to be lifting as heavy as possible each workout. The idea is to focus on long term progression of weight lifted, which forces your body to adapt by getting stronger and building/maintaining muscle.

That was a mouthful and I don't think anything was overwhelming but if you have questions, I'm all ears. I haven't read the remainder of this thread... so I'll do that now to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Edit: I just read your most recent post and for what it's worth, I'm not sure I agree with the approach your trainer is taking. Easing your way back into things is best, imo. Adding more and more weight to the bar to the point your failing is futile in terms of the goals you have. All it's going to do is at best, cause DOMS (which isn't at all an indicator of workout efficacy) at worst get you hurt. See my point above about starting weights.
 
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STEVE...
Thanks for all the advise. It all makes sense to me & I recognise it from material i've read or learned in my own matter. The first day of my workout was full body basically. He added more & more weight just to see what my potential max was, but not intended for it to be my set weight to start lifting with. Since muscle has memory it makes sense why I was able to lift relatively closely with that I left off with as my 3 rep max in high school. He did mention how he wasnt going to make me lift heavy in the beginning. I probally wrote that wrong in my other posts as to confuse people with his plans for me. The guy who signed me up, who has worked with my PT tony(also known as my neighbor), asked me how things were going for me so far so I explained my current training. He was impressed & encouraged me to keep up the good work. All of this is a learning process for me. Im looking for success as much as failure in order for me to learn how to better myself & my body's workouts. I went today but didnt really focus on training since my body was sore & he agreed. I did "minimal" training mostly for my other muscle groups we hadnt focused on before, but nothing strenuous. I did however contiune with my cardio for the remainder of my workout. Since I was there I made myself usefull, not to waste time & to continue with my fat burn plan. As for the whey substitute, Im looking foward to using it so I know I have a good definate amount of protein in my diet. Im not an automatic human nutritional guide with what I eat, meaning...I dont know all the nutritional info on what I eat except for calories. I also want to use it after my workouts for that catabolism to anabolism factor...tomorrow I meet with another PT whom ive met a couple years back as a friend. This is my complamentary free session fitness assesment that I signed up for the day i bought my membership . Im excited to see what he has to say also.
 
or something similar might help if you're interested in getting a better handle on your nutrition. That coupled with a digital food scale makes a world of difference.

When you're not carrying a lot of fat to begin with and you're female, it's extremely critical to get adequate amounts of protein in when dieting. If you don't, you really do run the risk of losing some quality muscle. At the end of the day, all that's good for is leaving you looking like a smaller, yet still soft version of your former self.

The supplement will help but again, it's just food. A good ballpark to be in is 1 gram of protein per pound of goal weight.

Working out *always* increases anabolism AND catabolism. Pre and post workout nutrition makes a lot of difference in terms of what wins out at the "end of the day" - net anabolism or net catabolism.
 
I see what you're saying steve...could you explain a little better about the whole anabolism & catabolism??? Im familiar with it, but vaguely...if that even makes sense lol...btw...did you get a chance to peek in both of my albums & see the before & after pics??
 
ok steve I think im got a handle on the anabolism v.s. catabolism, but you can still explain it...ill let you kno if its what im thinking of
 
I have not had the chance to see your photos... I'll do some searching when I'm done here.

With regards to anabolism and catabolism... in essence it's merely metabolism. Our bodies are in a constant state of building up and breaking down. The choices we make in terms of nutrition and activity influence what happens more (building up vs. breaking down).

What we're really talking about is protein metabolism, or the building up vs. breaking down of protein... as that's the primary component of muscle. There's a lot of other stuff comprising muscle too (sarcoplasm, cellular matter, glycogen, fatty acids, water, etc) but we'll only concern ourselves with protein for purposes of this conversation.

All things remaining constant... our bodies like homeostasis, which is simply the body’s tendency to work towards the maintenance of a stable, constant condition internally. Homeostasis sees to it, when there's no external influence, that protein build up is equal to protein breakdown, thus leaving things constant.

As we know though, our bodies are adaptive. If they weren't, we wouldn't have made it very long as a species. Because our environments are ever-changing, our bodies have to be good at adapting to maintain homeostasis.

For instance, if you're stuck on top a mountain and the temps are -60 and the wind is blowing at 100 mph... your external environment has changed. This change greatly challenges homeostasis. In your body's mind it's thinking, "If I want to keep things constant, I have to change some things internally in response to the external conditions. I liken it to a thermostat. You set your thermostat at 70 in the winter. If the outside temp dips below freezing and keeps falling, it challenges the thermostat. In an effort to hold the temperature at 70... the thermostat triggers the furnace to kick on and produce heat. Your body works much the same way. In the case where you're stuck on the mountain, you'll start shivering for example, in an attempt to maintain your body temp.

Now there's various factors in our external environments that can impact adaptation of protein metabolism. Certain factors will influence protein breakdown to outweigh protein build up (synthesis) which will lead to atrophy. This is catabolism.

Other factors will influence protein synthesis to outweigh protein breakdown which will lead to hypertrophy (muscle growth which is really protein growth). This is anabolism.

Examples of factors that can lead to atrophy are starvation/malnourishment and inactivity.

Examples of factors that can lead to hypertrophy is adequate nutrition (calories/protein) as well as activity.

Now simply doing activity isn't enough. You have to do enough activity. What's enough? Enough is an amount that's going to lead to overload. All this means is you're putting more stress on the muscles than their accustomed to which challenges homeostasis so in response, they're going to adapt by growing given adequate ingredients (protein, calories, rest, etc).

I could go on for a long while discussing in detail specifics of nutrition and exercise and how they influence protein metabolism under specific instances but I'd bore you to death, lol.

Does this answer your question?
 
so yesterday 7/9/09 was my free PT acessment with Dewon. He got a good feel for my diet & daily routine & gave me advise on how to improve it. He said that my body fat needs to drop now before I start to weight lift, so not to really lift & if I do lift, make it maintenance lifting...high reps easy weight. Also he advised me to not run, but to do walking or cardio that going to keep me in my "target heart zone" so i can burn fat. Im going to give this a try seeing this week was horrbile for my diet & exercise it seems. I gained like 3 lbs within this week even tho I workout for at least an hour each day. I this this is becase I was eating a little more than i should too. Dewon told me my diet shold be like 1,000-1,200/day. Seems a little low. If my caloric intake is say 1,200 & I work out for an hour & burn 280 calories, then im below 1,000 & thats not including the calories I burn at rest during the day. I read a while back your body goes into starvation mode when it gets below 1,200 calories so your body starts to save the fat on. Maybe I misunderstood him I dont know....does anyone have suggestios comments concerns to this post??:banghead:
 
steve...
that makes sense. My understanding of it is this...anabolism is the process of building up & catabolism is the proces of breaking down. I know catabolism happends usually twice a day, once in the morning & once after woking out. Proteins convert catabolism to anabolism...


i went to my free PT accessment at the gym with another trainer there. I posted on it previous to this post. Do you agree with what hes saying?? especially about the caloric intake & the weight lifting?
 
NEEDLESTIX86 said:
so yesterday 7/9/09 was my free PT acessment with Dewon. He got a good feel for my diet & daily routine & gave me advise on how to improve it. He said that my body fat needs to drop now before I start to weight lift, so not to really lift & if I do lift, make it maintenance lifting...high reps easy weight.
Click to expand...

I'll shoot straight...

It seems to me this guy has no idea what he's talking about. Obese people, sure, they can nix lifting at first b/c they don't have a real concern with losing muscle. Smaller individuals though, especially women, need to lift weights IF they're interested in more than the number on the scale.

I assume you're doing this to look and feel better, right?

Well, if that's the case, lifting weights is what promotes body recomposition, which is merely the process of losing fat while maintaining or even gaining muscle. That's what gives your body shape. Like I said, becoming a lighter, still soft version of your former self is simple. All it takes is a caloric deficit. But I've yet to meet one person who desires that.

What stimulates muscle preservation while dieting is adequate protein and appropriate resistance training.

Adequate protein we covered... something like 1 gram per pound of goal weight is good.

In terms of weight training, you need to hit at least a certain threshold of intensity in order to trigger muscle maintenance. Going below said threshold provides no stimulus for muscle preservation... essentially you have to provide your body with a reason to hold onto the good stuff (muscle).

Light, high rep weight training with minimal rest does have a place. It's great for calorie wasting and enhancing the metabolic properties of your muscle. But it should most certainly take a backseat to heavier stuff for someone in your shoes.

I can't stress that enough.

Also he advised me to not run, but to do walking or cardio that going to keep me in my "target heart zone" so i can burn fat.
Click to expand...

This solidified my idea that this guy doesn't have a clue. I intend no offense by saying so. Most trainers haven't a clue, unfortunately.

Fat burning zone?

It is true you burn a greater percentage of fat exercising at lower intensities. But you also burn less total calories, which at the end of the day, is what matters most relative to losing fat. What substrate is fueling an activity matters very little when it comes to losing fat. I know it's easy to fall into the trap of saying, "Well if I'm burning predominantly fat as fuel, this must be the best 'dose' of exercise for me."

Not so fast though.

At rest is when our bodies are burning the greatest percentage of fat. Do you see people getting lean and healthy by resting?

Didn't think so.

As I said above... it comes down to caloric expenditure via exercise and not fuel substrate.

Alan Aragon wrote a fantastic article on this found here:



Im going to give this a try seeing this week was horrbile for my diet & exercise it seems.
Click to expand...

You can do what you want. I can only provide you with the facts and it's on you to decide your course of action. What I can assure you though is this "trainer" doesn't firmly grasp exercise physiology.

I gained like 3 lbs within this week even tho I workout for at least an hour each day. I this this is becase I was eating a little more than i should too. Dewon told me my diet shold be like 1,000-1,200/day.
Click to expand...

I think you need to learn to ask "why" when someone tells you to do something without reason. Or print out everything I've told you here, including the article, and take it to him. You'll be helping him as a professional as well as any future clients of his.

If he's of the type who refuses to learn because they're too afraid to due to the size of their ego, move on.

Why would 1,000 calories be right for you? Beating your body into submission by excessive exercise and ridiculously low calorie intakes usually ends very poorly, fyi.
 
NEEDLESTIX86 said:
steve...
that makes sense. My understanding of it is this...anabolism is the process of building up & catabolism is the proces of breaking down. I know catabolism happends usually twice a day, once in the morning & once after woking out. Proteins convert catabolism to anabolism...
Click to expand...

No, cataboilsm is happening all of the time. So is anabolism.

Do you agree with what hes saying??
Click to expand...

Not even a little bit.
 
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