Deborahg382's Journal, 13 May 2014

more weight less reps to build muscle. cheers! 

Thanks Sarahduke, but I am going for toned and not wanting to add bulk at all. 

adding bulk requires lifting ALOT of weight, women are not designed to bulk...tone = muscle.  

dont be afraid of weights! They are your friend! 

I heard I want to do high repetition. Is that bad advise? I love the weights, legs are my favorite but do not want thick arms or biceps.. yuk.  

Yes, It is better to do a lesser weight with more reps. Lots of weight can damage your muscles. Some guys do some serious damage to themselves trying to push it too far. 

Up the weights a bit at a time and do more each time. You won't be bulking up. If you want that toned look, you need to use the muscles more. Women don't bulk naturally (that would take a heck of a lot of trying and possibly some added drugs to do that).  

@ Deborah, it's basically aerobics VS resistance training. If you do do lots of repetitions (beyond like 20), it starts being more aerobic. If you can only left a given weight less than, more or less, 20 repetitions, that's resistance training. Both are good to lose weight but, to develop your muscles (like sarah said, even despite developing your muscles, it's very difficult to get bulk) and raise your metabolism in a more permanent way (even when you're resting, you will definitely want resistance training. The ideal is to have a session of resistance training and, at the end, like 30 minutes aerobics. This way you will develop your muscles, get a great metabolism and still develop your cardio-vascular system and get the benefits of cardio :) 

where you read "left", please read "lift" lol. That was me writing with a New Zealander/South African accent heheheh  

If the weight is heavy enough that you can't lift it much more than 20 times, that's resistance training. Be careful with your back posture. Keep your shoulders back and your back straight when you lift weights off the floor. Lift with your legs and not with your back! :) 

Like Priest says though, don't go too extreme. There is a balance. Some people will try to lift weights that are out of their capacity (the kind of weights you can only lift like once or twice) and then they get injured. That was me some time ago lol. 

Anything between 7 and 25 reps should be good. Less reps more weight for strength and nerve adaptation; medium reps and a little less weight for creating muscle; even more reps and less weight for endurance (and now you're on the way for aerobics) ;) 

Thanks for all the advice. So far I'm doing high reps with weights that make my muscles burn, but I can lift them well. It just burns like hell. I do lots of reps for each exercise. I finish with a little cardio. Trying to get 30 minutes in of cardio its so boring.. I do have ear buds but can't wait to be done I'd rather do weights! My weigh in has been good, its come down.. looking forward to it coming out of the 200's!  

That's good! Remember that lifting the weight like 5 times is only developing your strength if 5 times is the most you could lift. If you have a weight you could lift 50 times and you only lift it 5 times, that's still aerobics heheh. Just to clarify what I wrote earlier :) The number of times you "can" lift a given weight (in other words, the weight itself) is what determines the type of exercise you are doing, even if you don't lift it that number of times. 30 minutes of cardio is definitely boring if you're not also distracting yourself with either music, tv, or something else :P That's definitely a problem for me also! If you just do 15 minutes, that's definitely better than doing no cardio at all lol. Believe me, cardio will make you feel great. It's definitely worth it. Very important for health heheh, and you get less tired doing stuff on your day-to-day experience, etc. You're doing a great job!  

I also have a hard time doing 30 minutes cardio with just music lol. I need to stimulate my mind with something more like video for example lol.