Q&A for: 8-Nov-05
985. Q:
In reference to # 981 about me being so exausted after resistance training. . I am 33 years old, 235 lb female, 5'6. (UNFIT for now) I have been resistance training for 3 weeks. These are my resistance training exersises.(I do crunches , and butt exercises everyday) All others I do every other day.. After doing these, I am soooo exausted, but not to the point of passing out, but close to where I could go rite to sleep from being so tired, and drained feeling, and it lasts like that for about 2 hours, then everything is back to normal. But when I first started exercising I was not tired like this afterwards. Only the past 4 or 5 times.
#1 Push ups on the wall. Feet pretty far back, because Iam pretty strong in my arms. 3 sets of 15, rest between 1 minute.
#2 Crunches. I do not put my hands behind my head because my abs are not strong enough yet, and I barley bring my head up, just enough to use all of my ab muscles. 3 sets of 10. rest between, 1 minute.(those are a killer, lol )
#3 holding 1 lb weights I do whatever this exersise is called. I put my arms strait out from my shoulders, and bend them strait up, and lift the weights to the ceiling and back down even with my shoulders. 3 sets of 15, rest between 1 minute.
#4 sit in a chair and bend over and bring the weights from the floor up to my body under my arms ( exersises the back muscles) 3 sets of 12 rest between 1 minute.
#5 Standing strait up holding onto the back of a chair, I bring my leg back to the wall behind me. It exersises the butt muscles, lol and it works really well!
3 sets of 15 rest between 1 minute.
#6 Arm curls and I do lots and lots of those with my 1 lb weights with no rest, because I can do those and not even feel it. I have to get heavier weights for my arms.
#7 two more kinds of arm exercises, but I don't know what they're called, and I can do those without resting and barley even feel it.
The one thing that really wears me out, is the crunches. But the sets are small, and after 3 weeks I should be able to do 30 without any problems (I think)
The only other changes I have made in the last week is I have started walking 30 minutes to an hour a day, and I stopped drinking sweet tea. I was drinking like 2 cups of sugar a day in my tea for 10 years,no kidding I was addicted to it for real. (probably why I gained so much weight to begin with) But I feel soooo much better since I've stopped drinking sugar. Would that maby be why I am so tired after exercising? The exaustion(sp) after resistance training started about the same time as I quit sugar. and since nothing else is wrong, I don't think I need to see a DR.(hopefully not) because all goes back to normal after a few hours. Thanks so much for your help!
A:
That's a pretty intense program, good job sticking with it! Your tiredness, as you describe it, is normal and good, but what is not quite as good is that it only started happening lately. You may well be right that it's the combination of less sugar and more activity (walking) that's doing it to you, but it still should be fixed. One of the surest symptoms of overtraining is when the same old workouts get harder and harder to do. Overtraining happens when you don't give your body enough rest and/or proper nutrition and it cannot fully recover in between exercise sessions. Over time overtraining will result in lack or progress and even injuries.
So I would suggest that you do all exercises (including crunches and butt exercises) only every other day and walk only on the days when you don't do the exercises. If you really used A LOT of sugar in your tea, then have a few strawberries throughout the day to make up for that. I would also recommend dropping #6 and/or #7 exercises and adding lunges instead (2-3 sets of 10). This will work your legs more since they're a little underworked now and drop the arm exercises that are too easy anyways. Lunges are very tough, probably will be tougher than crunches for you. So do them first in order, while you're still fresh. Make the lunges as small or as big as needed while you get used to the movement and develop balance. Oh and your #3 exercise is called the shoulder press.
One last thing, and I should've asked for it earlier, is maybe you can post your diet as well. If you are undereating badly, then it can contribute to overtraining as well as it will stop your fat loss much sooner that could happen if you eat right. You can also check out my Nutrition article if you haven't already.
Again, great job for doing this and sticking with it! You are well on your way to being healthy and fit!
989. Q:
how to lose man boobs?
A:
Please read this.
990. Q:
Person from 969 and 974. I have been exercising everyday but I can't seem to stop snacking between meals :( Any tips for that? I feel great after I exercise. I hope to lose my man boobs this way :) Exercise everday and eating healthier. You may think this is stupid but I printed out your respenses to my 969 and 974 questions to remind myself in the morning why to exercise :) I am going to keep it up :)
A:
Snacking can be perfectly fine, you just need to snack on the good stuff instead of chips. Keep around baby carrots, celery sticks, strawberries or other berries, apples, some dry-roasted nuts or sunflower seeds (but go easy on nuts/seeds -- easiest way to make sure you have to hull them before you eat them. If you keep them already hulled then it's too easy to keep popping them and overeat).
Make sure you eat nice big healthy breakfast every day. Plain old-fashioned oatmeal is a perfect breakfast food and I recommend cottage cheese as well. Both taste bland by themselves, but pretty good with some fruits or berries thrown in. For lunch, dinner, and supper (if you have one) make sure you eat plenty of veggies, especially green ones, in addition to whatever else. Then snack on that stuff I mentioned above in between as needed. If you have big healthy meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner then you won't even want to snack so much.
You have a great mindset to becoming more fit! :) That's the main thing -- be into it and keep plugging away every day. All those small things will add up to huge changes over time.
991. Q:
What is a good training program to increase muscle mass?
A:
Check out my Weight Training article and look for sample 4- and 5-day split programs in there. Those are great for muscle gain. And remember that even the best training program will give you barely any results if your diet is not up to par. Read my Nutrition article to learn how to structure your diet.
992. Q:
Q 941: I gained back 2.4 of the 4.8 (not 4.4) pounds that I lost in the 10 days following the sudden weight loss.But I have lost permanently about 2,5 pounds in two weeks.But when I was doing 50 minutes of cardio at a heartrate of 125 I was not getting these results.why is it that 30 minutes at my training heart rate has been more succssfull? arent calories burned about the same in both cases?
A:
So basically you lost two and a half pounds in two weeks time. That's a perfectly normal and healthy weight loss pace. You did the right thing by upping the cardio intensity but once again the change in the cardio routine is certainly NOT single-handedly responsible for this weight loss. I'd even say that the reduction cardio from 50 minutes to 30 minutes was more responsible -- doing too much cardio tends to run your metabolism into the ground and for many people cutting down cardio actually wakes up metabolism a bit.
But again, no one thing is going to be responsible for this weight loss. It's a combination of your doing a lot of things, training-wise, diet-wise, lifestyle-wise. Don't focus on changes day to day but instead look for changes over several weeks. Kinda like now: think in terms of having lost two and a half pounds over the course of two weeks, not in terms of losing 5 pounds in 5 days and then gaining 2.5 pounds in the following 10 days. No one aspect of your program and no one (or five) days will determine your success over long time. You need to look at the big picture but do a lot of small things right -- the change in cardio intensity is just one of these things.
993. Q:
Mike, im the sorta manboob puffy nipple guy from 591. i was looking at a side view of my chest today in the mirror(shirt off), when i flexed my chest, about 3-3.5 inches up from my nipple a little hump off muslce kinda poked out like a mini mini hill i guess you could say my up upper chest. does this mean im doin my benches wrong or something? because my chest doesnt show muscle as much as the hill i talked about does. also, the next day after a chest workout ill feel the burn in my uppper chest above my nipple, but never realy like where the nipple area is. i hope i didnt confuse you/ not explain good. if you need a picture or anything i can send one because i dont want to mess my chest up any more then it aleady is
A:
Well, you're trying to bulk up and build up your upper chest muscles, so this sounds like what you would want, isn't it?! This is normal, especially if you've been doing incline chest presses. As you build up upper chest muscles, they'll 'stretch' the chest fat over bigger area, improving the 'man boob' appearence.
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