Q&A for: 4-Jul-05
42. Q:
if one person burns 600 calories bicycling in 45 minutes and another burns the same amount of calories in 90 minutes isnt the first person's workout more beneficial because it is more intense and his/her's metabolism will be at a higher level for a longer period of time after the workout is over ? although the seond person will burn more fat calories during the exercise ,I suspect the first person will burn more calories for several hours after the workout is over
A:
That's a very interesting question. I haven't seen any hard data on something like this, but my response would probably be that no, they would not have significantly different metabolic response while recovering. That is assuming both of them stayed within their aerobic threshold, meaning that they kept the same pace for the entire 45 or 90 minutes (one faster pace, one slower, obviously, but both keeping consistent pace). On the other hand, if one of them was doing to-exhaustion sprints, followed by rest periods followed by more to-exhaustion sprints, and so on then he probably would really have higher metabolic response when recovering. That sort of exercise would be along the lines of HIIT -- I mentioned it answering question # 33. You can look up that question by entering 33 in the 'See Quetion Number' search box and hitting Submit next to it.
43. Q:
I have been doing leg curls at 50 pounds, 3 sets,8 reps. I cant seem to get beyond 50 pounds even though I've been doing this for 6 weeks.
A:
Well if the next weight you can select on the machine is 60 pounds or even 55 pounds, then it's certainly understandable why you're having trouble. It would be a 10-20% increase from the current weight you're lifting, which is actually a huge jump.
Assuming that the next weight you can select is 60, I would try to scale this hurdle in smaller steps, as approximately following:
Week 1: 60 x 4, 60 x 3, 50 x 8
Week 2: 60 x 5, 60 x 4, 50 x 8
Week 3: 60 x 6, 60 x 5, 60 x 3
Week 4: 60 x 7, 60 x 6, 60 x 4
Week 5: 60 x 8, 60 x 7, 60 x 5
Week 6: 60 x 8, 60 x 8, 60 x 6
Week 7: 60 x 8, 60 x 8, 60 x 8
So it'll take you a few weeks, but in small increments you'll get to doing 3 sets of 8 reps with 60 pounds! Don't worry about following this sequence exactly or about it taking you longer than 7 weeks -- just take away the lesson about making small increments which over time will add up to big progress!
45. Q:
I was weight training today even though my muscles were sore from the previous workout 2 days ago.Is this a bad idea? should I postpone my workout until the soreness is 100% gone?
A:
Don't ever train muscles that are still recovering from your last workout! It is OK and, in fact, expected that you train one muscle group while another is still sore and recovering. For example if your legs are sore from doing squats two days ago, it's still perfectly OK to train chest with bench presses. But it's not OK to do lunges on sore legs.
Well-designed lifting programs will stagger working different muscle groups throughout the week so you can work one group while the other is still recovering. You can find examples of such programs in the Weightlifting article in the Articles section of the site.
46. Q:
does weight training increase hunger?
A:
Oh yes, weightlifting can send your hunger through the roof! :) Your hunger tells you that your metabolism is rising. That's why it's so important to pay attention to your diet, ESPECIALLY when you are weighttraining to lose fat!
Weighttraining and eating when hungry is by far the biggest reason why so many people say that weightlifting made them big or fat instead of making them lose weight. Weightlifting hiked their metabolism and made them hungry. If they pay attention to their diets and stay in control, they are very successful in burning the fat. But if instead they choose to eat whenever they feel hunger, then not even their new high metabolism can accomodate all the new extra calories. As the result, they gain weight instead of losing it and blame it on weightlifting :) So, YES, please plan out your diet and stick to it when lifting weights, because you WILL feel hunger a lot more than before.
If you are looking to bulk up, you can be a little more relaxed about strictly sticking to the diet. Still, do not let yourself go so much that you start eating a ton of food. Too fast of a weight gain will only result in extra fat. Your body can and does build up fat FAR faster and easier than muscle.
47. Q:
I have a genetic predisposition to being thin and slender. Do I need to weight train differently from other people? Since it is not easy for me to gain muslce should I completely cut my carido workout? I do 40 minutes of cardio 7 days a week.
A:
No, your weight training would not be special in any way. You could still follow the same programs as given in the Weightlifting article. As with anyone else, I would advise you to cycle through all the different programs, spending no more than 2-3 months on each one (with 1 week breaks in between).
What would be different for you is your diet and cardio. As you guessed, I would definitely advise dropping cardio altogether or at least cutting it down A LOT if your goal is to gain muscle. Once you put on enough muscle, you'll find yourself with some new fat as well (that's just how your body works -- it doesn't care too much about looking good :). At that point you can restart your intensive cardio program if you want. But doing heavy cardio is counter-productive to building muscle.
Your diet will have to be sifficient for you to gain weight. You'll need to experiment how much food do you need to gradually gain weight (1-2 pounds per month, to keep fat gains minimal or more than 2 pounds/month if you don't care about extra fat). Increase the amount you eat, stick with it for 2-3 weeks and track your weight progress. If you're not gaining, increase again. Try not to have 3 huge meals -- instead have 5 or 6 or 7 smaller ones. Main thing is to keep eating until you gain weight. It may seem impossible at first, but you'll surprised just how much you can actually eat!
48. Q:
If I weight train every other day,is that too much?
A:
No, weighttraining every other day is perfectly fine for most people. Keep your training sessions to under one hour each and put in 12-20 intense sets into each one and you should be making good progress. Check out the Articles section for the Weightlifting article if you haven't done it already. It gives several sample workout routines.
49. Q:
In response to question 46, shouldnt one always eat something when hunger arises?
A:
Not really. If you have a well established diet plan to reach a specific goal of losing X or gaining Y pounds per month, then you should stick to that plan. A good diet plan will include meals at critical times when your body really is low on energy, such as in the morning and after workouts. A good plan will also make sure that you do not starve, so that hunger is tolerable. Unless you have reason to believe that your diet plan is wrong somehow, you should stick to it, hunger or not. If you do not believe in your diet plan then you probably need to observe your eating habits and corresponding weight changes more closely, so that you can put together a good plan. Or have your trainer do it for you :)
If you are trying to lose the fat, you will most certainly feel hunger occasionally throughout the day, possibly even continuously. Even when gaining weight slowly, you may still feel hunger occasionally. It doesn't mean that you should eat at that point. It may mean that your diet plan needs some work. For example, if you allow a five-hour gap in between meals at one point in the day and always find yourself hungry in the fourth hour, it's definitely a good idea to break up one of the larger meals and have a small meal or snack in the middle of those five hours. But situations like this (going long time without eating) should not happen in a good diet plan in the first place.
Also, while on the topic of hunger, remember that it can arise for psychological reasons such as stress, boredom, old habits, etc. If are sure that your diet plan works, but you still find yourself struggling with hunger, find ways to suppress it without eating a lot of food. Drink plain water, make yourself a veggie salad with no oil or dressing (can use vinegar) -- it would be nearly calorie free and very good for you, go for a walk, read a book, call your friends, or even turn on the TV. Basically distract yourself from hunger.
50. Q:
I have a comment on question 38.skinfold calipers only measures the fat under the skin but the human body also has fat which is not in that area so isnt the BI method more accurate?
A:
No, bioimpedance measures are notorious for poor accuracy and poor consistency. They rely on the fact that fat tissues conduct electricity much worse than tissues with water content. The problem is that water content can vary greatly in your body both in short-term (hours) and long-term (days, months, years) time scales due to any number of reasons. The main reason for the popularity of bioimpedance devices is good marketing and ease of use. Unfortunately most people don't know better and assume that BI measures are as trustworthy as weight measures and that is just not the case.
The amount of subcutaneous (under-skin) fat is roughly directly proportional to the total amount of fat in the body. So measuring subcutaneous fat with calipers and plugging the results into empirically derived equations (such as 3-point or 7-point provided on this site, as well as several others) gives you a good approximation of the total percent body fat. I definitely recommend calipers over BI for tracking BF%.
51. Q:
If I no longer have any soreness from weight training despite increasing my weights does this mean im not working had enough or progressing?
A:
No, this is perfectly normal. Soreness is greatest when you are just starting out with weights or after you return to weightlifting from a long break. If you exercise a particular muscle group with frequency (one or more times per week), the post-workout soreness in that muscle group will diminish or disappear completely. As long as you are increasing weights lifted, as you've said, soreness is just an annoyance and if you can avoid it, then all the better!
DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) varies greatly from muscle group to muscle group and also from person to person. DOMS in calves (after calf raises), quads (upper thighs, after exercises like squats), and lower back (after deadlifts) can be truly devastating if it's your first time doing the exercise in a long time or if you forgot to stretch the muscle well before AND especially after. I've had periods of 2-3 days when I could literally barely walk and couldn't bend down to tie my shoes at all because of DOMS! Some people on the other hand barely get DOMS no matter what and can still progress in their training perfectly well.
So don't read too much into DOMS, as long as you're making progress. Stretch well, especially after the exercise and in the following days (those stretches can hurt a bit if DOMS kicked in already, but do your best).
One time it may be wise to pay attention to DOMS is if it appears truly excessive or long and you're not making any progress in the gym. That's one of the symptoms of overtraining, which is the condition when you're simply stressing your body in the gym (and/or possibly outside) too much and it cannot repair the damage before the next gym session. Overtraining is not easy to spot. Many people take the lack of progress as the sign that they are not training hard enough and start pushing themselves even more which of course leads to even worse overtraining. If you have any combination of the following, along with lack of or very slow progress, consider taking a week or two off the gym and come back with a lighter program: excessive DOMS, lack of strength, insomnia, lack of appetite, irritability, sicknesses, injuries (even small ones), lack of motivation, depression. Any of these can be an indication of overtraining and several of them at once should definitely not be ignored.
52. Q:
I have gained muscle mass even though my muscles dont look bigger. Can weight trainig cause my muscles to increase in density without an increase in volume?
A:
Muscle density is always more or less constant. There're some controversial theories that suggest that cardio-tranined and strength-trained muscles are more dense than bodybuilding-trained muscles. But even if these theories are true, the difference in densities would be far too small to observe with the naked eye.
But you may well be correct that you've gained muscle mass even though your muscles don't look bigger for a number of reasons:
- Fat is less dense than muscle (in other words, fat takes up more room), so if you lose some fat from, say, your upper arms and replace it with the equal weight of muscle, your upper arms will actually become a little smaller even though they'll be more muscular. You should be able to notice the difference in the hardness of that area (upper arm or other) now versus relative flabbiness before.
- Even more likely, you lost significant amount of fat and replaced it with a lesser amount of muscle -- this will result in the same effect, only even more pronounced. Again, notice how hard your muscles feel now even though they make look smaller or the same. This is because you've lost all the extra fat around them.
- You may also be assuming that you've gained muscle mass because you are stronger now. That's not always a correct assumption. Most of the beginner strength gains come not from larger muscles but from more efficient use of the existing muscles by your nervous system (muscle recruitment). Of course having more strength is a very good thing in its own right -- it'll help you lift greater weights and build muscle faster that way. So it's a win-win situation in either case.
- You may have actually gained muscle and it really is bigger now, but it's just not easy to see with the naked eye. This can be especially true for things like muscles of the back. You can use tape measure to keep track of your muscle growth, so you don't need to rely on your eyes (commonly measured areas are flexed upper arms at the bicep peak, chest at the nipple level, mid-thigh, calves, and neck). You can also take periodic progress photos (aka before and after pictures), either relaxed or flexed. The photos especially can be a great self-motivation tool down the road and I highly recommend them.
53. Q:
Low reps,heavy weights or high reps, light weights. WHich one is better for muscle growth? And dont both methods increase muscle mass anyway?
A:
In general, heavy-to-medium weights and low-to-medium (12 or fewer per set) reps to failure or near failure.
Best year-round programs will have a lot of variation and changes of intensity to let your body recover and not get overtrained. The easiest way to achieve variation is to simply change training routines every two months or so (I have several sample routines in the Weightlifting article). The easiest way to prevent overtraining is to take 1-2 week breaks from lifting every two months or so.
I also want to make a special note of 20-rep squats and deadlifts -- very tough and potent exercises which you may miss out on if you only stick to 6-12 rep ranges. I highly recommend you incorporate these into your routine in at least one or two of your two-month programs throughout the year. You would perform these using weights that would normally cause failure in 10-15 reps, but you would take rest-pauses in the middle of the set (not putting the bar down) until you squeeze out the full 20 reps. Of course as always when performing squats and deadlifts, be careful to maintain PERFECT FORM and DO NOT REACH ACTUAL FAILURE. Instead when you are starting to feel that you can no longer maintain perfect form, take a 5-10 second pause and then continue again.
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