Q&A for: 2-May-08
2656. Q:
Earlier this year, I lost some muscle mass due to poor eating habits. It has been my goal lately to gain back the muscle mass in my legs. I have been working out for about a month and a half now, and I have still not seen any results. Every time I think I am making progress, the gains I see are virtually gone by the next time I go to the gym (I have been going twice a week, mondays and thursdays). I have been eating well and I only drink alcohol about every other weekend. My workout consists of the leg press, lunges, leg curls, leg extensions, and leg adductions and abductions. I have been able to increase the weight with each workout, so I must be getting stronger, but I still haven't noticed any permanent increase in size. I feel like I am doing everything right, but not getting any results. Do you know of any reason this might be happening?
A:
Your workout sounds fine (though squats are probably the single best exercise and you would do well to add them unless you have a medical reason to avoid them). I'm guessing the problem is that you are simply not eating enough to gain weight and without weight gain the muscle gains will happen either very slowly or not at all, depending on your current physical condition (the better shape you are in, the harder it is to keep gaining muscle). If you are serious about building muscle you'll need to eat enough to slowly gain weight -- about 1 pound gained every 2 weeks is a good pace (faster than that and you'll wind up with a lot of unwanted new fat).
If you are not familiar with how to structure your diet for quality weight and muscle gain, make sure to read my Diet article and for a muscle-building diet idea you can check fill out Fitness Guide. Hope that helps and good luck!
2657. Q:
Ive filled out your customized fitness guide sheet and i filled it out two different ways to see if the exercises were any different (lose fat & tone and maintain) and they came up as the same method. my question is, does your body height have anything to do with it? I am 20 years old, 6'6" at 220 lbs and I am starting to get a belly and unwanted chest fat. And unfortunately i do not have access to gym at the moment. Anything different from your proposed custom exercise guide i should be doing or will i be ok sticking to your guide? I also have a bench press and dumbells.
A:
Weight training need not change at all, whether you are trying to gain muscle or lose fat -- heavy whole-body weight training accomplishes both. What determines whether weight training results mainly in new muscle gain or in new fat loss is your nutrition -- if you eat more you'll gain new weight and with it new muscle. If you eat less you'll lose weight and old fat.
There is no need to alter the program because of your height either -- it'll simply affect how much weight you'll be able to lift. You may find some exercises like squats and bench press somewhat harder than a shorter person of your relative strength would. On the other hand you might find upper back exercises slightly easier. But you still should do all the basic core exercises prescribed by my program, to the best of your strength and ability.
The fact that you don't have access to a full gym will limit your exercise selection of course. Here you'll need to be flexible and improvise with what you have. Do lunges or dumbbell squats instead of barbell squat or leg press (to do dumbbell squats hold dumbbells down by your sides and perform the regular squat motion). Do pullups or dumbbell rows instead of pulldowns. Pullups do require a pullup bar and I strongly recommend that you get one if you don't have one already -- they're usually quite cheap and can be isntalled in most door frames. In general, you should be able to substitute dumbbells in place of a barbell in virtually any exercise. Those should be the main changes you might need to make in my sample programs. The rest you should be able to follow just as the Fitness Guide prescribes. Good luck!
2658. Q:
is it normal for a girl thats 5'5 to weigh 140
A:
140 pounds at height 5 foot 5 inches is within healthy range. For your height 150 pounds or more is considered overweight.
2659. Q:
9 year old to weigh 90
A:
90 pounds is definitely above average for a 9-year old, but whether it's too much or not depends on the height. If your height is 4 feet 8 inches or more, then 90 pounds is perfectly normal weight. If your height is much less than that, then you may want to improve your diet and become more physically active. It's almost certain that you should NOT try to lose weight, even if you are well under 4 foot 8 inches -- losing weight at your age is a very bad idea since it may prematurely stop your growth. Instead of trying to lose weight make sure you eat healthy nutritious foods -- lots of vegetables and fruits and whole grains and little or no sweets, soda or junk food. Also make sure you are physically active -- doesn't matter how, just don't sit in front of TV or computer all day. If you take care of eating well and being active, I promise you that you will not stay overweight for long.
2660. Q:
I recently started using the sauna after workouts. What I want to know is what the effects of sauna is on muscle building. I'm a hardgainer and so don't want to do anything that wil hinder my muscle growth. If sauna is beneficial, how should I be going about it? One guy at the gym suggested rotations of a 3 minute session, followed by a shower, for 40 minutes.
A:
Sauna is great and will certainly not harm your muscle gains in any way at all. The only thing I would recommend is that if you won't be able to eat for an hour or more after the workout (because you'll be in sauna or for any other reason) is that you at least have a protein shake before the sauna.
2661. Q:
i what to loose a lot of weight really soon,mostly in my butt. but i dont thonk i could stick with a diet
A:
You don't need to be on a strict diet, but if you are serious about losing weight you need to at least control what kinds of food you eat and how much you eat. Please read my Nutrition article to learn how to eat for successful weight loss. Again, you don't need to be very strict about it, but you need to know in general what kinds of foods and meals you should try and go for. The second aspect of any successful weight loss is, of course, exercise -- both cardio and weight training. Read my Fat Loss article to learn why weight training is important and start adding weight training to your exercise routine to go along with cardio. You can use Fitness Guide to get a sample starter program. Good luck!
2663. Q:
I have an upper body fat and do not like my looks. I want my arms,tommy and shoulder reduced
A:
There is absolutely no way to target any specific areas of your body for fat loss, but if you lose overall body fat you'll lose the fat on those trouble spots as well. Please read my Fat Loss article for the most effective approach to losing extra body fat (and keeping it off).
2666. Q:
hey mike,i have a question for you,when i suck in my stomach it looks like a real wash board,im wondering if i need to lose fat or do more ab exercise in order to get a real wash board.im totally slim and workout heavy 3 days a week.thx for ur time
A:
It's difficult for me to tell you for sure without being able to see you. For most people, even though the stomach looks perfect flat when 'sucked in', there is still too much body fat to see the true six-pack. If you say you are already very slim, then you could potentially benefit from trying to build up your abdominal muscles more so they stand out. Again, I can't tell you for sure what's the case with you but if you are an average guy, then you'd probably do better focusing on losing more body fat.
2667. Q:
I recently started running 4 miles about 5 days a week. I'm drinking on average 68oz of water and one sport drink. Do i need to increase my water intake because i increased my milage?
A:
That's about half a gallon of water that you drink daily and that meets the minimum recommended amount. But since you run quite a bit, you certainly could drink more.
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