Q: Hi Mike :)
I am a 5'6 240 pound female, and I resistance train everyday for a week now. I am now hearing that I cannot resistance train everyday. Is it because I will get big man muscles? I am highly motivated about the resistance training and am disapointed about not getting to do them everyday. I know I need to add cardio, and will soon. But I refuse to go out anywhere looking this big, and I don't have machines or videos to follow for cardio. So, can I resistance train everyday and not build bulk? and what can I do for cardio behind my closed doors at home? Thank you!

A: You have a great mindset about exercising, great job! The reason that everyday heavy resistance training is not recommended is because for most people it would be overtraining, meaning your body would not be able to fully recover in between sessions. Overtraining leads to lack of progress and injuries over long term. However this is likely to happen only when you use very heavy weights (meaning such weights that you can only do less than 12 reps of any one exercise before your muscles giving out) OR when you do a lot of weight training, an hour's worth or so daily.

So with that in mind, you could actually arrange your resistance training to be daily... Allow 3 days of the week to have intense 30-45 minute sessions when you would use those heavy weights that cause muscular failure in 12 reps in any set. Allow the other 4 days for significantly less intense 20-30 minute sessions when you would use light weights (20 reps or more before failure). An arrangement like that should not lead to overtraining.

When you weight train, remember to train all your muscle groups in the course of the week. If you're not very familiar with weight training programs, check out my Weight Training article -- it'll cover the basics and give you several sample programs to try, including two that require almost no equipment.

To address your concern about getting too muscular... It won't happen as long as you are losing weight. So as long as you are losing 1-2 pounds/week thanks to a good fat-burning diet, weight training and, hopefully, some cardio, you should be quite safe from building much new muscle. But do make sure that you have a good diet and are losing weight -- read my Nutrition article if you haven't already.

Finally, for cardio you can do at home all it really takes is some imagination: dance to your favorite tunes, jump rope, shadow box, do jumping jacks, etc. All of these are very simple and very effective forms of cardio. Good time to do cardio for you would be on the same days when you do light weight training. Best of luck to you on your quest to get in shape!