On this subject, does anyone think doing a cardio DVD with hand/wrist weights is enough of an increase to be effective as weight training? I don't have any other 'machines' at home and find going to the gym isn't practical given my work schedule.

e

Sure it is. I started off with some dumbells, I still use em quite a bit. Then I went nuts and got a squat rack and all that stuff later

It is possible to loose a ton of body fat in one week, just don't eat. That doesn't mean it is healthy though. If you want to keep you muscle mass you currently have I would recommend slower weight loss of 1-2 lbs a week. I am an advocate of higher intensity cardio as well. I've never seen a marathon runner that I wanted to have the same physique as. I have seen a multitude of sprinters who have the body I'm after.

Do cardio after lifting. There is no reason to do it prior. Warming up is important, but you don't have to do cardio to warm up. Just do warm up sets of the exercise you want to do and the blood will flow to the muscles you'll be working.

I'm glad to see all these girls into weight lifting. I die a little inside everytime a meet a girl afraid she'll suddenly gain 50 lbs of muscle if she does a set of bench press. *sigh*. Your question about reps is a common one. A previous poster touched on the fact that there are tons of rep and set schemes to successfully build muscle. I never go higher than 15 reps per set personally, but some people do and that's fine. I would disagree with your trainer that 3*20 is all you should be doing. I constantly rotate my rep schemes (2*15, 8*3, 5*5, whatever). If you don't you'll likely plateau. As long as you know how to squat and lift properly you should make it a goal to progress weekly. Whether that progression is adding more weight to the bar or adding another rep, a set, waiting less time inbetween a set, whatever. If you are not progressing you...well...are not progressing. Why even lift then? You'll be maintaining muscle mass and burning some energy doing it, but I have yet to meet a normal person who couldn't benifit from more muscle, especially women.

If you can advance weekly doing 3*20 than great, but I bet your body won't allow you to progress after a while. Lifting differently allows different muscle fibers to be worked and also trains your central nervous system to handle more of a load. Talk to you trainer about these concepts if your goals are to gain muscle mass. If he doesn't think you can benifit from adding more weight to the bar of trying different styles of lifting then I don't think your trainer is a very good one personally.

A final suggestion. Make cardio secondary to weight training. Cardio does burn fat and carbs as the other poster mentioned, but like any exercise it also burns muscle. If you are doing too much cardio you won't make any progress in the muscle mass department. I would never suggest sessions lasting longer than 45-60 minutes. Those are pushing it even. Good luck and good training.

Thanks for your tips...I think I burned myself out of the gym for a few days (busy as well with weddings and such) So in about 1/2 hour i'm heading back to the gym for a heavy leg day.

I will defiently re-vamp my workouts though so hopefully we can see some more fat loss soon...

e, whatever you do is better than doing nothing, for sure. Does your DVD have you doing squats, lunges, push-ups.....bodyweight exercises? If not, try to incorporate those into your routine and see what you think.

Thanks so much for the help DL & Galatia. The pilates DVD has me doing weight bearing exercises but the others are more cardio like walk or dance ones. I've started using dumbells/wrist weights during the walking DVDs and hoping this will contribute to my body's weight training needs as I really don't have many other options in terms of formal weight training.

I'm hoping it's a suitable substitute.

e

Just a suggestion ~ perhaps you could buy some dumbbells and a good weight training book to use at home. That's how I started off initially.

I thoroughly recommend The Body Sculpting Bible for Women, not only is it an excellent teacher of technique (which is vitally important), it also provides several great workouts where only dumbbells are required.

IMHO, free weights (i.e. dumbbells and barbells) give you a far better workout than machines anyway.

I suggest you drop the cardo all together.

Yup, that's right, that's what I said. Drop the cardio. If you weight train properly, you dont need it.

I used to do an hour or more of cardio, six days a week, after a certain point, it had no effect on my weight.

I started doing "slow burn" style weight training and eating less, and my weight has started dropping again, for the first time in years.

you can look up the book on Slow Burn by Fred Hahn and the Drs. Eades (of protein power fame). The key features are 1) Lift very heavy weights 2) very slowly 3) only one or two short workouts per week 4) train to failure withing 40 - 90 seconds for each exercise.

I agree..if you are doing a half hour worth of cardio after your workout,then you were not training hard enough.

If you do cardio at all, it should be on your off days from lifting. How about 3 days of weightlifting and 2 days of cardio?

Weight lifting should be your main component of fat burning.

I once did a 6 week program before I went to Hawaii. I did a body composition type workout, no aerobics, a low carb diet and I lost 20 lbs of fat and gained 8 lbs of muscle and I just about had a 6 pack. Another 2 weeks would of got me there.

wow. This is all new and kind of scary. It goes against all that I've heard so far. But it's worth a try I suppose. I thought tho if your a female that you have to do cardio to "burn fat"...
Ignorant question I know...but curious...

Any tips on how not to get burnt out? I'm trying to figure out ways to livin up and make my workouts fun. Otherwise I can't get myself to the gym...

it's pretty hard to get burned out when you only need to go the gym once or twice a week, 30 minutes a session maximum.

Jw Wilson.

If you were to workout 3x's a week and do 30 minutes of intense weight training, you'd not burn out.

Except for those genetically blessed it really does take some effort. I'm not just talking losing weight,that is usually the easiest part.

But to really change your body composition, predomintely one of muscle, get to the gym,work your tail off with weights and go home and recuperate.

here's a good example, this guy does two HIT workouts (not exactly slow burn but pretty close) a week, and that's it. He is pretty active - punches the bag, plays soccer once a week, does some martial arts, but he isnt running on the treadmill 45 minutes every day.

of course, not everyone has his genetics, but you can do your best to get as close as possible to his physique, without cardio.

http://www.drdarden.com/readTopic.do?id=382901

Good ol Ellington Darden, yeah I know of him and now he's a Bow flex boy.

What he is doing is all out absolute failure type of workouts,which I feel a large part of the population would do well on at first,but would quickly burn out. It did for me and alot of people who have done it. I was a huge Mike Mentzer fan in the late 70's and early 80's and he had a rebirth in the early 90's,but that type of training just seems to work for a select few .

By all means everyone who wants to should try it. It is a great program to help reduce overtraining and up the intensity

actually I was referring to that Andy McCutcheon guy, he is a bowflex guy. Not sure if Darden is.

why would you burn out? or, in your case, why did you burn out? Sure, the workout itself is intense, but it's over in 20 plus minutes. only 4-5 reps per exercise, 6 or so exercises per session, and then you rest for 2 or 3 days or more. I always feel like I'm not working out enough, actually.