Mild weight training to lose weight?!
Question: Hi everybody.
I'm 20 years old, 5"5", 120 pounds and I'm trying to lose 10 pounds. It is very difficult because they always say "the last 30 pounds are most difficult to lose." Anyways, I've been running for 50 minutes on the treadmill 5 days a week, but I'm hearing that some mild weight training is absolutely necessary. What is meant by mild? How many reps and sets should I be doing?
Answers: Hi everybody.
I'm 20 years old, 5"5", 120 pounds and I'm trying to lose 10 pounds. It is very difficult because they always say "the last 30 pounds are most difficult to lose." Anyways, I've been running for 50 minutes on the treadmill 5 days a week, but I'm hearing that some mild weight training is absolutely necessary. What is meant by mild? How many reps and sets should I be doing?
I hear ya, I'm 20 and the first 20lbs. came off no problem, but the last 15 seemd to be impossible, the furthur you get the harder it is!
Weight training is absloutely necessary, muscles burn calories constantly, even when you sleep, so the more you have the more they consume!
The exercises I'm going to give you are not normally ones that girls are willing to do, but I assure you they are the best for two different reasons, they are all full body lifts, so you'll build your entire body proportionatley. You'll want to keep your reps under 10, but work untill you can't do them any more, meaning a lot of weight, and when lifting you should never rest for more than 30sec.
Exercises:
Snatches (dumbbell, don't try the barbell ones)
Squats (all varaitions)
Deadlifts
Renegade dumbbell rows
Benchpress (all variations)
Clean and press (never seen a girl do this, but it's a great one)
Like I said, there's two reasons for these
1) they work your entire body, if done right your moving a lot of weight a great distance on all of these (with the exception of the rows) which means your doing a lot of work and getting great cardio value with lots of muscle building.
2) these exercises break down muscles and tissues all over your body, which means you'll be repairing them for up to two full days, meaning your RMR (resting metabolic rate) will be much higher during that time, even to the point where they are more efficent than long endurence cardio.
I would still consider this mild weightlifting, you should do three sets of each exercise with somewhere from 3-5 reps per set, do two exercises every time you go to the gym, if you go 5-6 days a week, if you go 3-4 you should do 3 exercises.
Make sure you are keeping your cardio intensity high, if your doing 50 minutes at under 6mph your don't doing very much good. You should also mix other cardio in there, sprints, suicides, boxing, swimming, just put something else in.
start off easy on the lifts, and if you don't know how to do any of them just youtube it.
good luck, and do the lifts, it'll make a world of diference!
ok, don't listen to that low rep stuff, you need to establish muscle first in order to tone it, that comes later, your not gonna get bulky, that takes a huge amount of work and a very long time.
defientely need it. Talk to a trainer at your gym. Basically, you need high reps, low weight so you can tone your muscles but not build. Talk to a trainer good luck!
By "mild" I suspect people mean use fairly light weights.
If your gym has a circuit training loop, start using those machines (you don't need to follow the one-set-12-reps circuit plan, though). Pick a weight that is comfortable for 10-12 reps, not too heavy, and do one set to start with and work up to two or three. Don't need to go real heavy.
The reason weight training is important when trying to lose weight is because muscle mass burns way more calories at rest than fat/bone/connective tissue etc. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn sitting at your desk at work, not to mention on the treadmill. You're not lifting to become muscular, but stimulating the muscles to grow a bit will help you lose those last 10 pounds.
not a fitness instructor, but i'd say start with as much weight as you can physically manage, don't overdo it at the beginning,start by doing 5sets of 5, and try increasing by exercise by 1 every every week or until it gets too easy, then increase the weights as well.
Instead of running continiously for 50mins, try doing interval training like running fast for 5mins and jogging or walking for 2mins , this tends to give you a better cardio workout and will help you shift the weight.
the folks on here are mostly correct but PLEASE don't listen to the low # of reps. You need high reps (low weight) if you want to tone up (else you may become bulky). Do whatever weight you can do for 15 reps (most excercises). For triceps, back, and even some leg excercises - shoot for 20 reps as you get stronger. You should talk to a trainer - most will give you advice anytime they're not busy or schedule one free session