Q&A for: 23-Oct-06
1850. Q:
What lifts or exercies can I do to tighten my chest?
A:
If you are looking to lose some extra chest fat, then to get significant results you need to do more than just do some exercises -- you need to overhaul your diet and do exercises for all of your muscles because the more different muscles you exercise the more fat you'll burn. Please start by reading my fat loss article and good luck.
1851. Q:
When lifting heavy weights is most effective and efficient to lift them fast – with a lot of momentum or slowly – without momentum. I lift my weights fairly slowly and find this makes my workouts far more challenging than when I lift fast. However, I’ve seen kettlebell workouts where fast lifts are used – and kettlebells are known to be very intense effective workouts.
A:
I generally advise lifting the weights quickly while maintaining complete control. I would spend no more than one second on the concentric (lifting) phase of the exercise. The only exception may be in the last one or two reps before muscular failure when the weight simply becomes too heavy to lift rapidly. Lifting the weight rapidly but under control allows for greatest strength development in the long run. You can lower the weights a little slower if you like and spend 2-3 seconds fighting the weight while lowering it.
With power exercises such as clean or jerk you should never attempt to perform the exercise slowly (except when you're using no weight while learning the exercise) -- they are meant to be performed explosively.
1852. Q:
How can I gain weight without any exercise?
A:
Gaining weight is very easy -- just eat more! Exercising and lifting weights actually does not help you gain weight at all beside stimulating your appetite -- what it does help you is make sure that the new weight is more muscle than fat. However gaining weight, whether fat or muscle, still comes down to simply eating more. It may seem like you're eating a lot already but if you are not gaining weight, then you just need to eat more.
If you are specifically looking to gain muscle and not just fat, then fill out my fitness guide specifying 'Gain Muscle' as your goal.
If you just want to gain weight and don't care whether it's fat or muscle, then as I said before you just need to eat more and more. Stick with healthy foods, of course, but eat more of calorie-rich foods like brown rice, sweet potatoes, fruits, lean meats and fish, dry-roasted nuts and olive oil.
1853. Q:
what are your hours
A:
If you live in Dallas area and are interested in hiring me as your personal trainer, please email me at Mike@MikesFitness.com. Right now I'm fully booked on weekdays, but can fit in some weekend sessions -- please contact me by email if you're interested.
1854. Q:
How much extra water/waste weight is the overweight and obese person holding onto?
A:
It depends on how overweight the person is and what kind of diet he or she has been following, but rapid water weight loss of up to 15 pounds is not uncommon for an obese person with a diet change from a carb-rich one to a low-carb one. Eating junk food tends to exacerbate water retention even more.
1855. Q:
mike, im on your 5 day high volume workout. i really want my chest to get bigger, should i lower the rep ranges, or what?
A:
The main thing when trying to grow muscle is to eat enough to slowly but continually gain weight. Any old program with a good bulking diet that leads to weight gain will give you better results than the best program without weight gain.
Besides the diet there is no one program that you can follow to achieve maximum muscle growth. A good start would certainly be to increase the number of sets up to 20 to-failure sets/week for chest while keeping rep-range in 6-10 range for presses and 10-15 range for flies and crossovers. You can follow a program like that for a couple of months but after that you need to give your chest a break and switch to lower volume for some time. You should also consider doing a strength-specific program such as this to build up your strength. Over time greater strength will lead to greater muscle gains. So there is no one perfect program but you should try a variety of approaches. Of course, once again, the most important thing is to keep bulking and gaining weight.
1857. Q:
reply to 1848. i think i look bigger in the mirror now. my traps, legs, and arms are noticably bigger, pecs are a little harder and musucular looking then before. but, my lifts havent gone up much. i prolly only added about 15 pounds to my bench, 20 to squat, and 30-40 on deadlift
A:
It certainly sounds like a successful bulk. If you were able to accomplish all that without significant new fat gains you should be very happy. Your strength gains sound reasonable too, especially if you've been weight training for awhile before starting your bulk. Gains come slower and slower as you progress in your training. If you haven't tried it before, I recommend you try this program to increase your strength in the three big lifts -- you can do it even in the middle of your bulk.
1858. Q:
mike, during school, between breakfast and lunch,i have the opportunity to eat a snack. im bulking right now. i was eating a banana and some mixed nuts, but it has only 12 grams of protein, and like 40carbs. what is the best thing i could eat, other then a full meal of course.
A:
What you eat now sounds like a great snack for in between meals and probably can't be beat for convenience. The only thing is to keep in mind that you must be eating quite a lot of nuts to get 12 grams of protein -- about 2 ounces worth. That along with a banana adds up to around 450 calories with most of those coming from nuts in form of fat. So I would try to even it out a bit by making sure that the lunch has more protein along with carbs and not so many fats.
Aside from that, I'd keep everything as is. There are certainly higher-protein choices such as a tuna sandwich brought from home, for example, but they will be a bit more hassle to prepare and eat. As long as you get plenty of protein in your other meals and as long as these 450 calories fit into your daily diet I see no reason to change this snack.
1859. Q:
I just started a bulk and started taking creatine about two weeks ago. In those two weeks I have gained six pounds!!! From 144-146. Is this normal?
A:
It's probably OK. Change to a bulking diet will cause some extra water retention and so does starting creatine so together they may well add up to six pounds in two weeks. Dramatic weight gains should slow down now. Monitor your weight closely and make sure it goes up a lot slower -- about one pound every two weeks.
1860. Q:
Hi mike I'm 29 female 5.6 and 130lbs. I have alot of belly fat , spare tire . eceryone says i look good until I'm in a swim suit and it's because of my belly . I was wondering if walking will really help ? I use to walk but never seen results . Plese help ! Tina
A:
You are certainly in very good shape at 5'6 130lbs, so your belly fat problem cannot be very significant. For an already in-shape woman such as yourself it is difficult to continue losing more fat and minor measures such as walking more are not likely to give results by themselves. Your best bet would be to optimize your diet and take up whole-body weight training in addition to some cardio. I describe the basic approach in this article -- please read it and follow the steps outlined in it. Just keep in mind that because you are already in very good shape further progress will come slowly and will require closely sticking to a clean diet and good exercise program. Good luck!
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