Weight Lifting Advice

This is a continuation of a discussion started in another thread here:

http://caloriecount.about.com/colon-cleansers -ft154596?utm_source=notification&utm_med ium=email&utm_term=forumreply_topic&u tm_campaign=forumreply

I was looking for advice on how to maybe put on a few founds and acheive my idea of an ideal body that's toned, lean but shapely without being too thin and with bones showing.

I'm petite with a small frame (for example, my bra measurement is a 28" back) and naturally have a small waist but no ass! I waver between 44 - 47 kg / 98 - 102lbs but normally comfortably sit at 100lbs, and I'm 5'4. Whilst this is deemed underweight, I find it is my 'natural' weight when I eat normally (1700 calories a day) and exercise 4 times a week for 'keep-fit' rather than 'training'.

Feedback so far on this forum has been that I am too light and could put on up to 12lbs. In my experience, I have been unable to put on more than 3 or 4lbs without it being fat, and then I look 'chubby', with rolls of fat around my stomach and much wider hips.

I train weights three times a week in a muscle tone class, that usually circles all muscle groups in 40 minutes but sometimes focusses on lower or upper body. I also do 3 days of running a week, and karate twice a week.

I would say my ideal body would be Jennifer Aniston. She has the same build as me, but looks toned and fit without being boney, such as here:

http://www.xarj.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/0 6/jennifer-aniston.jpg

Currently you can see sometimes see my ribs and spine (again, I'm naturally very skinny) not so they're jutting out but if I hold my breath and hold my stomach in... but I have a layer of fat over my stomach and 'love handles'. My aim is to shift this fat, but also improve upon the boney look I sometimes get.

My one concern with weight training is that I would start to become too muscley and cut. This started to happen around my shoulder especially, when you could see the individual shoulder muscles and lats.

I currently lift 8kg total, 4kg each hand as my heaviest weight on bicep curls and prone flies etc. I squat 10kg. Like I said, this is part of a class which does exercises to a beat, often 'down for two, up for two, down for four up for four' etc.

Sorry this is so long, but putting on healthy weight rather than unhealthy weight is one thing I have never mastered! Any help or advice would really be appreciated.

I know that you mentioned that you think if you did weights on your own, you wouldn't keep it up, but maybe if you followed a plan, you'd be better off?

Although the squats you are doing are made harder by slowing them down, I think going at a more constant speed (not holding at the bottom), you'd be able to lift a lot more than 10kg. I'm going to let melkor weigh in on this one, because I know that there is some merit to doing them slowly, and I don't know what the trade-off is.

Also, I'm a little concerned that the only other exercises you mention are curls and flies... both are isolation exercises, and you won't get as much bang for your buck as you would doing more compound exercises.

Thanks amethystgirl. When I first started the class I struggled to curl 4kg and squat with 8kg but I've been going a while and managed to make these weights, so do think I need to up some of my weights.

Also, squats, curls and prone flys aren't the only exercises we do! These were just an example. My class today was:

squats
wide-leg squats
front raises
prone flies
shoulder press
lunge
lunge with back leg raise
press-ups
tri-cep press ups
back raises
row
plank / side-plank
side crunches, with alternate legs

This was a pretty average class with a fill-in instructor. There are two other instructors who have better routines that combine two moves at once and really break it up with one focus each class, such as gluts or triceps bringing in quite difficult exercises to focus on these.

We also do, off the top of my head: kick-back row for triceps, deadlift, lying down hip thrusts on one leg (I find really effective for glutes), tricep curls or bench tricep dips, row, plank with a few additions such as pulling a knee in, superman for lower back, etc.

I can't remember others, but they do a full range of exercises each class and each instructor alternates so you never do the same class twice in a week.

If you want to add muscle mass you'll have to eat more calories than you burn, and lots and lots of protein.

Interesting question, actually; your smaller frame does make for a potentially more rapid change in appearance since it takes less of an absolute change to be a reasonably large change percentage-wise.

 One of the things that you shouldn't bee too worried about is that whole "too defined" thing - that's a function of your food intake more than anything. If you're becoming too defined for your tastes the easiest fix in the world is to add in a few hundred calories extra so you're not depleting your body's fat stores to create more definition than you're comfortable with. Indeed, for most people while gaining the balancing act is more about not adding too many calories compared to your actual need for muscle building.

 The problem with most muscle tone classes is the same I have with all group fitness classes: they teach you the form, but not the substance. You've probably learned how to move the weights in the proper bar path, but you've never been exposed to a properly challenging weight for the major exercises.

 Suzanna is 3lbs lighter than you: granted she's a state champion, but you should have no problem at all with doing at least half of what she's doing if you've been training for - well, any length of time, I've rarely had any trainee who couldn't deadlift at least their bodyweight after a couple months of training.

 The problem with the light weight/high reps approach is that it's not actually building muscle as such, the major impact is on muscle endurance. Well, and there's potentially some effects on the non-contractile protein and cell cytoplasm resulting in what's called sarcoplasmic hypertrophy; that is your muscles are increasing in size because the cells are being pumped full of cell plasm to more efficiently nourish your muscle fibers during your strength endurance workouts. These adaptations are quick to appear - and quick to go away again, as you've already found out.

 Well, for bicep curl and other single-limb isolation movements 8-10kg might actually be pretty close to a legitimate training weight for you; it's more than possible that it crosses the Minimum Essential Strain threshold you need to start getting strength adaptations in the actual muscle fibers as opposed to the sarcoplasm for the majority of single-arm movements and a few of the specific exercises like the YTWL exercise for shoulders - that one I've actually had a few people do using nothing but their arms.

 But for the majority of the compound lifts you actually need to be performing to have any kind of lasting results there's no doubt in my mind that your trainers are doing you a gross disservice by having you underestimate your own potential to an almost frightening degree; at least if you've been training for longer than about two weeks.

Now, looking at your list of exercises, they seem reasonable, but what's entirely unreasonable and what makes me want to beat your instructors down with a barbell is having you use the exact same weights for single-arm exercises and compound lower body exercises; there is simply no way there's any legitimate training effect whatsoever in using the same weight that's challenging for a front raise for your squat, unless you're suffering from acute muscle atrophy in your legs.

Oh, yes - amethyst picked up on the tempo thing for squats specifically.

 There's some legitimate uses for tempo variations, but this all sounds more geared towards turning it into some sort of extended isometric hold and possibly with some of that superslow/slowburn trash thrown in for good measure - you'll feel the burn all right as various metabolites build up faster than your cardiovascular system can clear them, but feeling the burn doesn't mean you've had any sort of legitimate training effect. the MES for an absolute beginner might be around 60% of your 1-Rep Max(1RM), but within the first 1-2 months of training nothing less than 80% of your 1RM will do to cross that Minimum Essential Strain threshold. 80% translates to a weight you can lift at most 12 times before momentary muscle fatigue sets in; and a better training range for most would be the 90% mark or a 5RM weight.

The problem I have with people using heavier weights in these type of endurance strength classes is that they are usually total body workouts and each muscle is worked for approx 5 mins. That's a helluva a lot of reps. So, before doing more weight..if you are to continue to stay in these classes, you will not be able to up the weight too much...despite them telling you that you should do so every 4-6 weeks. I mean, after one year of taking a class and upping your weight, say, on squats every month...can you imagine doing ... lets say 330 lbs for 5 mins??

So, my first question to the OP is..how long is each track?

But if it's an "endurance strength class" that doesn't sound appropriate for the OP's goals, no?

I don't understand what kind of class it is..I guess that is my real question here. If it's like a PUMP/POWER class...eh. [putting my personal distaste for these classes aside] there is NO way a person can achieve her goals in one of those classes. They will [may be] teach proper form and they will offer a calorie burn since everything is so fast - which of course is insane since most of the people in these classes are novices to weights and then having them squating at the speed of light...well...I think you get the picture.

Well, at least not as the sole workout - there's legit applications for muscular endurance training too, but I don't think 100% of all even vaguely strength-related training should be about strength endurance. Especially not for someone looking to gain muscular bodyweight; the training stimuli simply isn't sufficient to be more than mildly helpful for stimulating muscle protein synthesis following a bout of exercise.

 Trying to gain muscle is hard enough as it is, you don't need to compound the problem by limiting yourself to workouts which don't actually help very much or at all with muscle gain, neh?

Wow, this is all really interesting, thanks for your responses everyone. Sorry if I miss out any points, I'll come back to this tomorrow morning when I'm thinking straight! (a long day...)

Melkor, that video of Suzanna is great and she looks great! Whilst I don't think I'll be aiming toward dead lifting that is very reassuring to know that strength doesn't equal bulk. I think your theory may be right, as I do have a small frame with very little fat in certain area hence why my shoulders were so prominent. Also, I forgot to mention, vascularity is a problem I seem to have after lots of weight training, mostly on my forearms and hands but there's one that pops out on my shoulder...but I'm told it's just something that some people get.

Also, that is fascinating about cell plasm - I never knew that - and it does seem to make sense for what I've been experiencing. I think since i started these muscle tone classes half a year ago (I usually go for a few months at a time consistently then have a holiday / Christmas in the way!) I've definitely acheived more muscle mass and definition that stays once I stop exercising for a short period of time, but the muscle definition and mass I build over a stream of steady classes does then disappear if I take a week off.

I did also think that the weight I was squatting was too light, but partly it's my fault for not choosing a heavier weight. The instructors take the class and recommend 'your heavier weight' for certain exercises but don't tutor each person individually. There are heavier weights available so I think I'll try heavier ones in the next class. 10kg does have me shaking in bicep curls and I generally can't finish the set, but that doesn't bother me. I do it to fatigue rather than to finish the song that we're lifting to!

Fitness girl, we probably do 30 seconds - 1 1/2 minutes of each set, 3 exercises in a set and each set twice. So, for example, 1 minute of squats at a slow pace, 1 minute of wide leg squats, 1 minute of kick-back row and repeat. I would say it is a middle-of-the-row class. We don't go really fast, and we do practice form with the instructor making sure everyone has good form (straight backs, bums out for squats etc.) but it isn't super slow and focussing on fatigue although the instructors do recommend lifting a heavier weight in the second set if we didn't fatigue in the first set. I've had friends who have done body pump (I think the British version of pump/power) and then 'muscle tone' (the class I do) and they say muscle tone is much harder and they can feel it more in their muscles the next day.

Also, for what I'm looking to acheive. I like to keep a high level of CV fitness and am training to do a 10k at the moment. So I'm looking for muscle training for building muscle and toning but not purely strength training.

Considering the wee discussion going back and forth between fitnessgirll and melkor, what would be the best way for me to train if I'm looking to build some muscle, cut fat around my middle section (ie general fat burn) and maintain the muscle gain without consistent building?

Thanks again for all your help, it's really appreciated!