Advice? Thoughts on strength training...

I want to know if there is an alternative to weight lifting.  Grrr... I just don't like weight lifting.  I have lost a great deal of weight and have taken up running.  I don't run in races or anything but I follow training schedules for races... just cause.  LOL.  Right now I am working on a 10 mile schedule.  I had my RMR tested yesterday and I have a high metabolism rate!  Whohoo.  For instance, I burn 1975 calories just by living, an additional 500 for daily activities, etc... 

ANYWAY, the tester was very adament that I need to do strength training... I assumed she meant weight lifting... to avoid being skinny fat.  Aughhhh... I need some alternatives to weight lifting... please....

For that particular purpose, there aren't any:

Hunter et.al. : Resistance Training Conserves Fat-free Mass and Resting Energy Expenditure Following Weight Loss.

 While doing endurance training will somewhat aid you in the weight loss department and for shorter distances will not negatively impact your muscle mass, the training adaptations for longer distances include gene expressions that result in smaller muscle fibers and lower overall muscle mass to better facilitate nutrient and oxygen transport to the muscles the running does leave you with.

 You can see it in pictures here:resistance training versus endurance training (Westcott, W., Fitness Management. Nov., 1991.) -do note that once you add proper strength training to your regime your muscle becomes much more resilient as your body will not dispose of muscle that's actually being used on a regular basis unless you go to extremes with the calorie deficit and exceed your body's fat mobilization capabilities.

 But for dieters, there's simply no alternative to progressive overload with resistance training if you're looking for actual results - even Marie Claire has cottoned on and recommends high resistance/low reps. (This may actually be a sign of the Apocalypse. Next thing you know, the unholy trinity of fitness misinformation of Shape, Self and Cosmo will catch on and stop spouting non-physiological exercise myths in their articles about health and fitness.

Naah, never happen, but a guy can dream, can't he?)

What don't you like about weight training?

I didn't like it til I learned what I was doing, and why, and what made a routine good (and just HAVING a routine, instead of wandering around the machines, aimlessly). Til then, it was boring, and I even though I knew what melkor says was true in theory, I still didn't want to do it.

Now it's pretty much all I do (exercise-wise).

Good point - while there's many ways to structure a training program that'll work, the key points are structure, consistency over time, and measurable progress. You could check out the List of weight training programs and the common theme for them is "pick up something heavy on a regular basis using a reasonable set/rep scheme, change periodically when progress stalls."

In theory.. I know you are right  LOL.  In the real world... blah.  LOL.  I think I have a two fold problem ( welll, prolly many problems but lets focus on the topic, teehee).  I want to see a high calorie burn when I work out, I want to seeeeeee the numbers clicking off on my heart rate monitor for the efforts I am putting out.  When it comes to weights, I am not patient enuff, I want to see the high heart rate, fast calorie burn, etc.... I feel soo slowed down when I try to use machines and geeeze-louise, the idea of free weights is even slower and more mind wrecking!

Two... I dont know what the hell I am doing.  No offense melkor, but those rooms are full of big ole buffed puffed sweaty men  LOL.  They grunt and scream and slam ****... LOL.  I work out at 4:00 am and even then, they are there!  I dont know what I am doing so its scary and intimidating.  The treadmill, running track and elliptical are my friends  LOL!

But... I have not lost over 125 pounds to become skinny fat or to lose my high metabolism that running/cardio has given me.  Oiy.... I will start with your reading suggestion.  Isn't pilates or something going to do the same?

Please... LOL. 

Another reading suggestion - New Rules of Lifting for Women. I think you might be it's precise target audience (as opposed to me, where by the time I read it, it was kinda preaching to the choir).

There are also things like bodyweight circuits that will definitely get your heartrate up... but they still won't challenge your muscles like heavy weight lifting.

And don't discount how high your heartrate can spike when you are lifting heavy.

Ugh - I'm with you. I hate lifting - even as I see results, I still think it's boring, boring, boring. My best advice is to find a partner - at least then you're going with someone, and there's someone to keep you accountable.

But for dieters, there's simply no alternative to progressive overload with resistance training if you're looking for actual results - even Marie Claire has cottoned on and recommends high resistance/low reps. (This may actually be a sign of the Apocalypse. Next thing you know, the unholy trinity of fitness misinformation of Shape, Self and Cosmo will catch on and stop spouting non-physiological exercise myths in their articles about health and fitness.

 

Naah, never happen, but a guy can dream, can't he?)

I nearly died laughing when I read this. 

jennifer28, as a runner, I can tell you I really get a hard, challenging workout from strength training -- it doesn't have to be boring.  AND I have become a better runner.  There really is no way I could run hills and have the endurance I have developed if I didn't strength train as a complement to my running. 

Maybe it would help if you think about it in terms of becoming a better runner?  Just my two cents.

Are there any activities that you like where strength training would come in handy?  For instance I do Brazilian Jui Jitsu and while I loathe running and am not terribly fond of weight work it does improve my performance and endurance so I've started to do some running (not a lot yet, but I do see more in the not so far distant future) and am still toying with the concept of weight lifting...I did buy a couple books, still have to do more than squats.  ;-)

Original Post by jennifer58:

In theory.. I know you are right  LOL.  In the real world... blah.  LOL.  I think I have a two fold problem ( welll, prolly many problems but lets focus on the topic, teehee).  I want to see a high calorie burn when I work out, I want to seeeeeee the numbers clicking off on my heart rate monitor for the efforts I am putting out.  When it comes to weights, I am not patient enuff, I want to see the high heart rate, fast calorie burn, etc.... I feel soo slowed down when I try to use machines and geeeze-louise, the idea of free weights is even slower and more mind wrecking!

Two... I dont know what the hell I am doing.  No offense melkor, but those rooms are full of big ole buffed puffed sweaty men  LOL.  They grunt and scream and slam ****... LOL.  I work out at 4:00 am and even then, they are there!  I dont know what I am doing so its scary and intimidating.  The treadmill, running track and elliptical are my friends  LOL!

But... I have not lost over 125 pounds to become skinny fat or to lose my high metabolism that running/cardio has given me.  Oiy.... I will start with your reading suggestion.  Isn't pilates or something going to do the same?

Please... LOL. 

yeah its hard to find a gym that you feel comfortable in. i go to a gym that is kind of lame for free weight lifting, BUT none of those types that take up room & get their sweaty palms all over the place. im limited in what i can do but i can feel comfortable doing it. not to mention i hate waiting for anything at the gym.

and if you do big compound movements with free weights you can get your heart rate up, its not a steady state but it does get up there. you just have to change your workout every few weeks to challenge your body.

i actually can get a pretty good endorphin release. i hate doing little piddly lifts of targeting the smaller muscles because i don't get that high.  maybe that's what you are missing, its all about the feeling during & afterwards for me. but like anything it takes time to get into it & feel comfortable.

NOT EDITED: boy my grammar is terrible at times!!!!

Thanks for your advice.  I walked by the weight machines and free weight room this morning and thought of melkor   LOL.  I do bicycle crunch thingies every morning (100+), I do pushups, both modified and if I am feeling Rockyish, real ones, I do core exercises and stretches every morning after my cardio for my back.  But somehow I  still dont think this is enuff to build strength/muscle.   I think I will actually use my Y's free offer to show me around the weight rooms or for 30.00 I can have 1 hour with a certified trainer at my Y, she seems nice.  I am mentally working my way towards accepting that I have to supplement all of my cardio.   blah 

My gym has a separate room just for circuit training. It puts together cardio and weight training. There is an attendant in there just to help with how to do it all. There is a timer so you stay at each station for 40 seconds and then the timer goes off and you have 30 seconds to set up at the next station so it keeps you moving and keep your heart rate up because you alternate machines and then cardio (stationary bike, rowing machine, etc.). Plus the atmosphere is totally different from the other workout rooms with the sweaty stinky grunting guys.

It has really helped with my running form and I can run longer without drooping at the end.

Well, bodyweight has limitations, but if you're willing to experiment they're further out than you'd think; your body doesn't know the difference between doing bench presses with 75% of your bodyweight and doing full-form pushups with your feet elevated. Or one-arm pushups; very few to no-one can do one-arm pushups straight away, but you can use bodyweight exercises to work towards that.

 You can also do single-leg variants like Bulgarian split squats (which has been known to make grown men quake with fear when I tell them they're on the program for today :-P), step-ups and the like, plus plyometrics of various kinds which can develop explosive capability in an athlete. (Note that plyometrics should only be used for 3-4 week blocks out of every quarter to peak performance for specific events, they're incredibly hard on joints and connective tissue and can cause permanent damage over the long term if overused.)

 There are options that don't involve entering the weight room if you're really uncomfortable there, but speaking as one of the probable grunters in the weight room we'd love to have you come be one of us.

 Working to a plan is always easier though - you don't feel out of place if you know in advance what you're going to do when you go in there and train.

I didn’t like weight lifting, either... until I tried it. Now it’s my favourite.

If you are reading this thinking “fine for her, but I still don’t like it,” I encourage you to give it a try anyway: do at least 3 sessions over a week or two, enough to work past the initial soreness and feel your strength build.

I never got into lifting alone; I haven’t developed the discipline to stick through the hard parts; I need someone telling me what to do and setting the rhythm. If you’re like me in that respect, two options are videos or group fitness classes.

Original Post by melkor:

You can also do single-leg variants like Bulgarian split squats (which has been known to make grown men quake with fear when I tell them they're on the program for today

yeah tell me about, i have to go do some tonight. those certainly get the heart rate up.

Original Post by amethystgirl:

Another reading suggestion - New Rules of Lifting for Women.

 ^^^^^^^^THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am pretty sure I know melkor's answer to this question ... the machines ... the machines (I hear Tattoo's voice in my head), would that start me off in the right direction at least?

Original Post by jennifer58:

I am pretty sure I know melkor's answer to this question ... the machines ... the machines (I hear Tattoo's voice in my head), would that start me off in the right direction at least?

 NO! Go to the free weights!! Start with db's....machines are ONLY ok to fatigue out the muscle [end of workout], imo.

exceptions are assisted pull ups [if you cant do pull ups on your own] and cable low row, lat pulldown.

Machines have their uses in a rehab context when you actually do need to isolate muscles to avoid stressing a current injury, but outside of very specific uses like that there's really no contest:

Following initial assessments, 30 sedentary male and female subjects were randomly divided among a nonexercise control group (C), a freeform group (FF) and a fixed-form (FX) group.
The FF group showed twice as much strength improvement as the FX group (115% vs. 57%, respectively). Study authors also found a 111% increase in joint pain among the FX group, whereas joint pain decreased by 30% in the FF group, with no new symptoms occurring upon study completion. Balance improved in both groups; however, the FF group had a 245% increase in balance capabilities compared with a less significant 49% increase among the FX group

Strength Gains: Fixed vs. Freeform Equipment
(Original study: Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. 22(1):75-81, January 2008.

 It's a tradeoff you've got to make for yourself - while machines tend to mean more pain and less gain than the equivalent free weights exercise, if it's a question of using machines or not doing it at all, use the machine. For you though... you've got a free weights area available; your time would be better spent there.

 Some people who're more interested in training their egos than their bodies like using machines 'cause they can "max the stack"- and for bodybuilders who need to bring up specific muscles to be proportionate there can be reasons to use machine isolation training to only train the lagging muscles.

 But for beginners, nah - you get better results, faster if you train your body the way it's designed to function, as a unit. If you aren't at the point where you can do 12-15 full-form push-ups, an equal number of step-ups and hanging/inverted rows you could probably see equal results just by doing bodyweight exercise until you do get to that point. However, weights allow for incremental and progressive loading with much smaller intervals than bodyweight - going from doing pushups to one-arm pushups is a heck of a jump ;)

I agree with everything Melkor said...

BUT..have a question for him.  Do you think machines are not useful to fatigue out a a muscle?

 For that specific purpose, sure; and for post-fatigue exercise specifically machines or cable stacks might actually be the safer alternative. especially if you're doing failure training.

 I just don't normally recommend post-fatigue training to anyone who isn't in the market for chasing a bodybuilder physique-style training. As far as I know it's a solution to the problem of getting in sufficient volume for the big movers to grow when the smaller muscles are the limiting factors in a compound lift.

 For a beginner/intermediate I think that's not really all that useful; pre- or post-exhaust training is one of those bodybuilder things that are useful for special populations, but not so much for someone just starting out. (And pre-exhaustion training is generally of very limited usefulness regardless, I prefer to have people fresh and focused for the big lifts and if there's any particular reason to try to get more volume in, do post-fatigue exercise.)

 Bryan Hancock of Hypertrophy-specific Research and Borge Hansen of Myorevolution have come up with an interesting variation on the theme, where you do your normal 8-10RM lifting and then do rest-pause or cluster reps to get in another 8-10 reps of the same exercise; useful is maximal hypertrophy is the goal.

 I think that generally though, it's something to think about only when the basic progression model starts stalling out. Depending on which program you're looking at that can be a long time -  for a beginner 6-9 months is usually how long the basic Starting Strength program remains useful before you need to bring out the more advanced stuff. For the more experienced trainee who just hasn't done a lot of barbell stuff but is in good shape apart from needing to learn the mechanics of doing the lifts, 6-12 weeks of just the basics is about the useful limit before you need to introduce assistance exercises.

 The New rules of Lifting changes up the program on a frequent enough basis that it never becomes an issue, by the time adaptation sets in you're on to the next phase anyway.

 There's room for lots of things in a fitness toolbox though; machines, barbells, bodyweight, yoga, swimming pools, bikes and specific programs; they're all just tools and matching the right tool to the current goal is easier if your tool kit is larger ;)