Last week I joined a new city-owned gym (yay!) that just opened near me. I've committed with a friend to work out M-W-F mornings for about 1 1/2 hours a day. I start out with a 20-minute warmup on a recumbent bike, and then have about an hour to do weights. On T-Th I usually go for a long walk, and usually walk or hike again at least one weekend day.

The question is, does anyone have suggestions for maximizing my workout? I have two goals--first, to get strong enough by July to row a raft on a river trip (not too strenuous, but still pretty physical), and second, to support my weight loss efforts. Right now, I've found weight levels at which I can do three sets of 12 reps, but I'm only working my upper body; I run out of time before I get to my legs. Would it be better to drop the third set, or should I just leave my legs alone? I've got to say, I love the upper body workout the most, but is that silly?

Any advice would be absolutely welcome!

Lenore,


Altenate upper and lower body on your short days and tryone day with both. The other choice is not of the 1/2 hour cardio and fit both in. You walk the other days right Or instead of waiting jump on the available cardio machine in between for interval trainning.

If you have to side on upper or lower, go for upper. Women have less upper body stength than men and this will help you with your trip. And the cardio will build the leg muscles, not the upper body.

About the reps, you should work hard enough that it is work, but not so hard that you can't keep form. Women have to work VERY, and I stress VERY, hard to build muscle bulk. Do you wan to tone? your 3 sets of 12 should be fine. If you want a little deffinition, use more weight for 2 sets. The next day you should be sore. Not the the point of not being able to get out of bed, but like you worked the day before. when you lift you create little tare in the muscle, that is the pain, You MUST wait at least 36 hours before you work that part again. It needs time to heal and be ready again.

I hope this helps. Be safe and be smart, the only person at the gym you have to impress is yourself.

-L

Don't forget those stomach muscles if you are going to be rowing. You won't believe how much you'll depend on them to help support your back while you are using the oars. Have a great trip and it's smart to get ready for it in advance.

I've actually read some recent research (I believe in Shape and Cooking Light magazines) saying that one set of reps is enough as long as your weight is heavy enough to exhaust the muscle. It certainly works for me! And you can get more done in the same time that way as well.

When I first starting lifting weights, someone pointed me to a great website dedicated to women and weightlifting. I just tried to check it, but it doesn't seem to be up right now. Hopefully it will be up again soon:

http://www.stumptuous.com/weights.html

--Diamonda
266/146.4/135

Congrats on a great start. Hopefull this will help:

An hour to do weights and you only do upper body? Something's amiss here. I do two exercises per body part (3 sets, 12 reps) for my ENTIRE body and it doesn't take me an hour. You do have it right, though, to train every other day for the same body part.

First, do cardio AFTER ST, or else you'll have your muscles pre-exhausted for your weights; you want the weights to exhaust them, not a walk. However, you do want to do a 5-10 minute warmup before ST. L114S is correct in that you should lift as heavy as you can to maximize the experience. Women don't bulk up.

Next, how many exercises are you doing per body part? You only need to start with one exercise for 3 sets of 12 reps for each part. For upper body, do it in this order: back, chest, bicept, tricept, shoulders (largest muscle group to smallest). Stretch for 30-60 seconds between sets of the muscle you just worked.

For lower body, do this order: quads, hamstrings/glutes, calfs (largest muscle group to smallest).

Remember to do abs whenever you ST either upper or lower.

When you get stronger, or are ambitious, you can do two exercises per body part, with the same guidelines outlined above.

I superset, which means I do opposite groups without a rest for 3 sets, THEN stretch. For example: quads/hamstrings/q/h/q/h then stretch q and h. Then I do back/chest, then bicpet/tricept in the same way. Finally, I do abs. Takes me less than an hour, three times per week.

i read an article in newsweek (followed by a column in my local newspaper) which suggested doing super slow reps. if you go super slow, you're intensely working the muscle cause you're not using any momentum. if memory serves me correctly, i believe the article said it would only take about 20 minutes to weight train your upper or lower body; going super slow really exhausts the muscle quickly.
i haven't tried this method but look forward to trying it soon.
lenore, good luck with your workouts!

I recently read that the first set of reps gives you about 90 percent of the overall value. So the second and third sets aren't nearly as important. Go for an all-around workout, including legs, abs, and back.

--Lauren

Thanks for all the tips! Actually, I guess I misstated my timing; I end up taking about 40 minutes to do the whole upper body circuit, and then stretch a little to cool down. That includes an ab machine, chest press, row, pec fly, back fly, shoulder press, lat pulldown, delt lift, biceps and triceps. Again, because I've been doing three sets in a row on each machine with about 30 seconds rest between sets, that takes some time.

I think I'll continue with my 15-20 minute warmup if only because it helps me wake up and gets blood to my brain, change to two sets per machine and increase the weight a little so I exhaust the muscle group on the second set, and maybe try REC's suggestion on working opposing muscle groups without rest. That should leave me some time to do some leg work. I wish I could motivate to get to the gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I need some mornings to sleep in!

I also have heard of a lot of theories on the speed of the lift and release; my habit is to lift quickly (1-2 seconds) and take 3-4 seconds to lower the weight. Sometimes this lets me lift a weight that I couldn't possibly lift if I had to lift it slowly, and believe me I get the workout on the way down. I always keep the weight controlled, though, and never 'throw' the weight to raise it or drop it; it's part of the weight-room etiquette I was taught years ago, when I first tried weight training.

I think you are wise to be concerned about getting in time for leg strength training. Remember, the lower body muscles - quads, hamstrings, gluts, etc - are the largest muscles in the body. Increasing their strength will boost your metabolism more effectively than training only your upper body. This will provide two benefits for the price of one - added leg strength and more lean muscle mass to increase your metabolism, helping your weight loss efforts.

All the suggestions above are good ideas. About the only thing I can add is to not be afraid to increase the amount of weight you lift while decreasing the sets. I personally believe that most women who strength train do not lift enough weight. We are much stronger than we think. If you are concerned about bulking up too much, check out the "Women & Muscle" post in the library thread.

The only advice that I'd give anyone who is starting to do strength training is to hire a personal trainer to show you the right way to do it. You don't need to sign up for weeks of training because a good trainer can give you a basic understanding in an hour or two. Of course, if you can afford it, it's great to spend several weeks of sessions with a PT. When I started out I read lots of books and went online for information, so I thought that I was doing everything the right way. One session with the trainer showed me just how wrong I was. I wasn't hurting myself, but I sure learned how to maximize my workouts by getting expert advice. Just be careful to find a trainer who is certified and knows what they're doing.

It was a great week! I increased all my weights and did two sets of eight reps on each on Wednesday and Friday; I included all the leg machines too, and started on low weights until I've been doing them for a week. I think I'll be increasing most of the weights, except for shoulder presses and rear delt (sort of like a reverse fly), since I still can't do eight reps on the second set on those machines.

It's amazing how great this makes me feel. I guess some of it might be getting up early and exercising before work, instead of later in the day when I'm more stressed and tired. But as much as I hate most gyms, lifting weights does give me a sense of accomplishment and self-confidence. I do tend to get fairly bulky muscle for a woman, and then there's the wonderful phenomenon of having my fat lifted up and pushed out by the muscle until I lean out a little more. At least it's better than before; before I lost 20-something pounds, whenever I started working out I had to give up wearing any suit jackets for a while because my arms wouldn't fit them anymore.

The downside of going to this city facility is that while they have people there who can show you how to use the machines, there aren't any personal trainers. I may wait a few more weeks and do a session or two with a trainer from one of the other ritzier gyms downtown, but for my purposes I think I'm doing pretty good. The main thing I go for is making sure the last few lifts are almost impossible, while making sure I don't over-arch my back or break form. If nothing else, that keeps my heart rate up, even if I take 30-60 seconds rest between sets. By the time I'm down to biceps and triceps, of course, I've cooled down enough that I can just stretch and go off to work.

Thanks for all the good tips!