Hey gals!

I am relatively new to lifting weights, only been lifting for 3 months and have put on 4.4 pounds of muscle (yay me) and I have some Dumb Questions:

1) My gym programme includes 1 lower body weight exercises and 3 upper body ones. I do it three times a week. Can I then add 1-2 further sessions a week at home lifting dumb-bells on different days or would that be too much of a strain on my upper body muscles? Should I isolate the muscle groups and work them on different days? Note - I never get any residual pain in my arms or upper body when I do work them hard - they can take it!

2) Is it true that you shouldn't lift before doing your cardio at the gym? I read somewhere that it renders your weight workout useless. That sounded spurious to me, but I am concerned enough to check it out ...

3) Strange as it may seem, I WANT lovely plump muscles! Most women are afraid of bulk, but it doesn't scare me - I like the nice curvy muscly look. Any tips?

4) What's this whole working to failure thing? Does that mean working heavy enough weights that you can barely do the last rep?! If so, I've got THAT down pat LOL!

Thanks gals!!

Tam

Just a note on #2 - Lifting weights right before cardio is generally fine (or so I've heard) if you're trying to lose weight. On the other hand, you shouldn't lift weights AFTER doing cardio because you'll have already depleted your muscle glycogen stores and the muscles will fatigue too quickly.

This is just MY OPINION here...

1) How long have you been doing the same routine - the same exercises three times a week? If you're not feeling any soreness, IMO that means it's time to change up your exercises, since it sounds as though your muscles have 'gotten used' to the routine. At the VERY least, up your weights. Krista's website at http://www.stumptuous.com/weights.html has some good splits and routines you can try, or check around the 'net or in fitness mags such as Oxygen or Hers for new routines to try. Variety is what makes your muscle grow.

2) Always do weights before cardio, if you're doing them in the same session.

3) I'm not the big expert, but basically, how muscle growth works (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) is when you lift to failure (like you said, where you can't hardly do the last rep *with strict form...form is EVERYTHING*) and the muscles 'tear' - the muscles grow during the healing process. That's the reason you need to have a day or two at least between working the same muscle groups - the muscle growth and development happens not WHEN you're lifting, but AFTERWARDS. (I think!) Also, if you want definition - that's what it sounds like you're getting at - you need to work on your nutrition and lose the excess bodyfat - otherwise you'll just have muscles underneath a layer of blubber.

4) see above.

I think I'm just lucky when it comes to my arms - I've only been on my brand new weights program, introducing dumbells and completely different weights, for just one week. And boy, do I work my poor little arms hard! The new programs is tough as ****! My poor little arms hurt like you wouldn't believe immediately after, then the pain is pretty much gone by the time I leave. My legs, abs, lower back are another story ... LOL. My arms sometimes feel a bit stiff, but never sore.

As for doing weights before cardio, I will stick to doing that ... 2Sweet is right about the muscle fatigue, my muscles are way weaker after cardio and quite pathetic!

hi guys! I have a quick question- is lifting after doing your cardio completely a bad idea? I like to get my cardio out of the way before i lift, so if i continue to do so will the results stop coming? Thanks a lot!

You won't be able to lift as much or get as much of the good effects of either cardio or lifting if you do it in that order. Check the Lifting and Cardio thread further down for a long discussion. Here's the short version:
You body's first choice of energy is ATP stored in the muscles. That lasts about 15 seconds. It is replenished by pulling glycogen stores out of the liver. That lasts about 45-60 minutes. After that, your body will turn to its fat stores as an energy source. It is not nearly as effective for short bursts of energy, because it takes longer to convert it into the type of energy that fast twitch muscles need for weight-lifting. But fat is real effective for powering slow-twitch endurance activity, like a cardio session.

If you use your glycogen stores for cardio, you won't have them for lifting. You need ATP delivered quickly to your muscle cells to lift effectively. The initial glycogen stored in your muscles and then pulled from your liver is what you've got to work with, unless you have a meal between cardio and lifting.

The theory behind doing cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach is that your glycogen is depleted at that point, so that your body has to convert to a fatburning mode fairly quickly. Personally, I walk into walls or fall off equipment if I don't eat first, so I've never really tested the effectiveness of that theory more than once. And I have the scars to prove it


Mel

I'm just glad that I don't have to do my lifting AFTER my cardio like that silly article said because my arms would fall right off!

And in other news, my arms HURT yesterday evening for the first time ... ever ... about 12 hours after a GRUESOME workout!

My legs still hurt today, ouchies ...

I have a question, if doing cardio before weights isn't that great, does that mean circut training is bad? it's like 1-2 minutes cardio - 2-3 weight lifting exercises and then back to cardio.

I dont think Circuit is as effective as seperate cardio sessions and weights sessions. I dont see how your muscles will get a full on workout if only using small weights for a few minutes and then having a brake and doing it again.

Iv been doing a mixture of weight machines and free weights, that takes up 1hour of my time. I am doing 2 sets of 15 as suggested by my trainer. Then after the weights i will do abut 20minutes of cardio. Then i take 2 days off since my muscles are really sore. Then next day i go and do around 45min-1 hour of cardio, and then day after i do weights again for an hour. Then 2 days off etc. So right now i am doing weights twice a week and Cardio about 3 times a week. Once i am fitter and stonger i will try doing weights 3 or 4 days a week.

I wouldn't say circuit training is bad, but I think it is more designed to be a cardio workout than a weight lifting workout. If you want to build muscle thus increasing your metabolism, then you'd need to do weight lifting seperately.