I've been doing about 40-50 minutes of cardio every day for maybe two months, and I've lost about 20 pounds, so clearly it's working. But I'm wondering if there would be significant benefits from some sort of strength training that I'm not getting yet. Does anyone have any advice on how to do this in a way that is safe and maintainable?
Strength training is a very important part of weight loss. In fact, some do more strenght training and less aerobics. No matter how you do it, you will need to do strength training. Muscles wil help burn more fat. You may find when you start to build muscle at first, you gain some (since muscles are heavier than fat), however, you will find you burn more calories and tone your body, which will help you loose inches. I highly recomend taking your measurements (if you haven't) so you can see how much you will loose when you start working out. Strength training comes in all forms...not just the nautilus machines at the gym, you can use dvd's that use free weights or yoga or pilates. But yes....definately start strenght training. Good luck!!!!!!!
I think it's important to have a strength training or resistance component to my exercise program. Muscle tissue burns fat--better toned muscle burns fat better.
I wouldn't attempt to use machines or any weights other than hand weights of 5 pounds or under without having a professional trainer show you the proper way to use the machines or weights. Too many times women will have their boyfriends try to show them how to do it. Inevitably the boyfriend hands her what he thinks is a light weight, but it is too heavy for a woman just starting.
Take a look at the resistance band workout posted above in the stickies and some of the sites in the stickies. Also, if you scroll down through this rorum, you'' find PLENTY of routines posted.
Strength training is an important part of an overall fitness program and that may be particularly so when the current goal is weight loss.
REASON 1: RETAINING MUSCLE MASS. “ WE WANT TO LOSE FAT, NOT WEIGHT
Will Brink has his “Unified Theory of Nutrition” which aims to bridge the gap of disagreement between those who feel that calories in vs calories out is all that matters and a calorie is a calorie no matter where it comes from and those who feel that macronutrient breakdown is the most important part and that all calories are not created equal.
Basically Will’s theory states and I’m paraphrasing as I don’t have it in front of me, “Calories in vs Calories out determine how much one will gain or lose; where those calories come from will determine what is gained or lost.”
I believe this can be extended further to include lifestyle and exercise. In other words calories in vs. calories out will still determine how much you will lose on your diet, where those calories in come from and what you did to burn those calories out will play a part in determining what is gained or lost.
It is important to remember that the body does not view it’s fat stores as something undesirable. On the contrary, it is it’s stores of emergency energy in times of starvation. It does not give them up easily without a fight. It’s like trying to pull money out of a 401K early. It can be done, but it isn’t going to be easy, and if not done the right way can result in a lot of unforseen penalties.
When the body is first put into a caloric deficit, it starts to dip into it’s emergency stores and will supplement it’s energy needs with stored body fat. After a while, it starts to see itself dipping into it’s emergency fund to rapidly and decides it has to cut back in other areas. First, it will start to use it’s energy more efficiently (reduced metabolism) and it will also look for other sources of energy other than the body fat. It will turn to your MUSCLES. It will try to breakdown your muscle tissue for energy unless it is told not to do it. You have to tell your body, “Hey! I NEED THAT!” If you don’t use your muscles, the body is going to say, “He/She wasn’t using it anyway,” and toss those muscle logs onto the fire instead of burning it’s valuable fat stores. While you are doing a lot of steady state cardio, this trains primarily your cardiovascular system with the muscular adaptations pretty much limited to increasing the mitochondria in one type of muscle fiber (Type 1, slow twitch). This doesn’t really tell your body to keep it’s filthy hands off your muscle stores. In fact, the body may decide that in order to fuel that endurance exercise, it will burn some of your muscle stores, therefore not only holding on to its fat stores but making it easier for you to do your endurance exercise because you won’t have to be hauling around all that heavy muscle that you weren’t using.
Strength training, tells the body that, “HEY, I’M USING THAT!” That the muscles should not be viewed as an easy source of alternative energy and that it’s just going to have to dip into those stores of body fat.
REASON 2: STRENGTH TRAINING RESULTS IN GREATER AFTERBURN THAN AEROBIC TRAINING.
In addition to keep the body from burning off lean tissue, strength training also forces the body to use calories toward the repair and rebuilding of muscle tissue broken down during training. What this means is that well after your training session is over, your body is still burning calories in response to the training at it is recovering from the metabolic disturbance (an Alwyn Cosgrove term) created during your session. In other words, you can take two exercise sessions, one aerobic and one anaerobic, and burn the same amount of calories in the session, but thanks to the wonders of EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption), you will burn more calories overall in the anaerobic session. Studies have shown time and time again that the body recovers quicker from aerobic exercise than it does from anaerobic exercise. Alwyn refers to EPOC as “afterburn.”
REASON 3: INCREASED METABOLISM
While the amount of calories burned by each pound of muscle is often greatly exaggerated, it is an undisputed fact that muscle is more metabolically active than fat tissue and a 160lb person at 15% body fat will have a higher maintenance calorie rate and than a 1601b person at 25% body fat.
REASON 4: INCREASED BONE DENSITY
Weight bearing exercise increases bone density. Your bones will be stronger and thicker, and less susceptible to trauma. While you are getting the benefits of this if you are walking, running, or using the eliptical, etc while doing cardio, but strength training will extend these benefits over the entire body.
REASON 5: ADDRESSING MUSCLE IMBALANCES
If training correctly, strength training can correct muscle imbalances and pain that often comes with it, such as low back and shoulder pain one might experience if their jobs entail sitting all day, especially if hunched over a computer screen or the like.
REASON 6: JOINT FUNCTION
The joints are at the mercy of the muscles that control them. If the muscles are weak and inhibited or tight and overactive, it eventually leads to a painful joint condition of some sort. And the proper function of one joint directly affects the joint above and below it. For example, a great deal of knee problems arise because of improper ankle or hip flexibility which causes the knee to try to make up for some of this lost range of motion forcing the knee into greater ranges of motion than it should operate in.
I could probably go on, but then this post is already much too long.
As for the second part of your question about safe and maintainable, I would say:
Focus on core stabilization and balance early. You must be able to main proper posture throughout your training exercises. Failure to do so is when the injuries start to occur. Once you can properly stabilize and control your body then you can start to progress into weight training.
Start slow and basic. Learn a few basic movements. Start with very light weight or even body weight and learn proper form.
I would recommend something along the lines of:
Dynamic Warmup:
Scapular wall slide: 1 set of 12
Shoulder Circles: 1 set of 20 (from small circles to big circles)
Bird Dogs: 1 set of 12
Glute Bridges: 1 set of 12
Single Leg unweighted good mornings: 1 set of 12
With the dynamic warmup, we are focusing on properly warming up the scapular and rotator cuffs and getting activating the glutes and warming up the hip flexors and lower back and the bird dogs and SL good mornings will provide some good light balance work as well. Basically we are concentrating on areas that are typically vulnerable, weak, or inactive.
Workout:
Planks:
Set1: Front Plank progressing up to 2 minute hold
Set2: Side Plank progressing up to 90 second hold
Set 3: Other Side Plank progressing up to 90 second hold
(When you max out this progression, I would move to a pushup progression and further on down the road to a bench press progression)
Inverted Rows: 3 sets of as many as possible.
(When you can do three sets of 12, I would move to a one arm dumbell row and further on down the line adding additional weight and row variations) Even after progressing into weighted exercises, I would still rotate the inverted rows into your program on a regular basis. It is a great exercise.
Swiss Ball YTWL: 3 circuits of 6 per "letter" Start with no weights, and then progress with some very light dumbells (1-3lbs), then 5lbs. When you get up to 8lbs, then I would start some shoulder presses. This is a very good exercise for overall shoulder health. Before starting overhead pressing, I would make sure the shoulders are well prepared. After you progress to a shoulder press, I would keep the YTWL in your arsenal to do as part of a warmup or an occassional "prehab" workout.
Assisted Pullups: 3 sets of 12 (use as much counterbalance or band assistance as needed. Progress by reducing assistance over time). If you don't have access to assisted pullups, then try some resistance bands attached to a high anchor and do resistance band pull downs.
Unweighted Squats: 3 sets of 12 (deep and maintaining proper back arch)
When you can do these and you are sure your form is pefect, I would move to a goblet squat, initiating weight slowly with a single dumbell)
Romanian Deadlift: 3 sets of 12 (start with just using a broom stick. Concentrating on pefect form. When happy with form, start introducing weight using aerobic body bars)
I can recommend a great book! I just picked up Joyce Vedral's Weight Training Made Easy for me, because I want to start strenght training but wasn't sure how. She has four levels in the book. The easy/first one is using 3 lb dumbbells. She explains all about it, how to do the moves (very important, so you don't hurt yourself) and then lists Day 1, and the workout. For instance she lists Chest and the oves for the chest, then shoulders, biceps, triceps, and back. All upper body. Then, day 2 is lower body - thighs, hips/buttocks, abdomials, and calves. Then she breaks it down even more. Each exercise gets a page to explain position, movement, things to watch for, sets, repititions and weights. There are also very good photographs of each movement. It's a great book. She does this for each level. I got mine at my local Barnes and Noble for $15.95. It's a great price.
Chapter 8 is Eating made simple Chapter 9 is a kind of question answer section, Chapter 10 is maintenance and how to prevent workout burnout, and in the back of the book are pages you can tear out and put on your wall. It is LOTS of photos for each routine.
I highly recommend this book. I looked at probably a good 15-20 books on weight training (there are plenty of them out there!) and saw several that were really good, but I loved the simplicity of this. You may be able to find it online, at Amazon or maybe even ebay.
Starting a strength training program?
