cocolove

Hello all!

I have a few questions to ask you all! Here they are:

There seems to be a few different theorys or beliefs that Personal Fitness Trainers have (and they are different from each other). Okay, so not from what you have read, but from what has worked for you; on toning your inner thighs. Do you agree with (from personal experience) using the inner thigh machines at the gym, or performing side lying hip adductor exercise, etc.? Or performing exercises in the saggital plane only (saggital plan means squats, lunges, etc. dividing the body into right and left portions)? Not to build them up, but to tone them and shed any fat in that area. And of course some great cardio exercise.

Next question; for someone who wants to bulid more muscle, but not bulk up (just really tone up and replace fat with muscle), would you agree with high reps and low weight (cause they don't want to bulk up), or say 15 reps with moderate weight?

Thank you all!

cocolove

DOMS

And the shit hits the fan in 5,4,3...



You can't spot reduce and the word "tone" offend most weight trainers who know what they're doing.

Your questions can be answered in the stickies. But I'll tell you this: you don't need to worry about those things so early in your weight training life. If you just eat well and workout, magical things will happen.

Gazhole

Lol, DOMS is right. Magical things will happen so long as you get a good balanced routine, and start eating right. Everything will sort itself out. You dont need to worry about the details for a while yet.

Read the stickies and learn.

http://sdatrainingprograms.blogspot.com - Updated 25/04/08

Tatyana

Hey hun,

You are going to lose muscle as you get older, and it is difficult for women to build muscle as it is.

I would agree that TONE is one of the most misused words in the gym.

Women will not bulk up unless they take steroids, or they have unreal freaky genetics. Most female bodybuilders look massive in the pictures you have seen because they are such low body fat, and the majority of them have taken steroids.

If you want great legs, avoid all those girlie machines. Do squats, lunges, stiff-leg dead lifts, leg extensions, leg curls.

I recently started adding dead lifts, and in all honesty, hit my inner thighs in a way that I did not think possible.

Don't focus on just your lower body, also do some upper body.

Women's legs can build up quite quickly, so reps of 15-20 are fine, but don't stick with the same routine for months and months and months on end. Vary it.

Upper body, go for reps between 8-12.

Here is a CT scan of a thigh from a teen-ager and a 30 year old woman who hasn't trained.

You either have muscle or fat, and they are not interchangeable. Build muscle, burn the fat off.

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Yellow is muscle, red is fat, white bit in middle is femur. If you see the same CT of a bodybuilder, there is very little RED (I only have one in a textbook)

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CowPimp

Spot reduction is not possible. Start cleaning up your diet, and build up the muscle in that area so there is actually something to "show off" when you get body fat low enough to reveal the shape of the musculature underneath.

The only time it's bad to feel the burn is when you're peeing...

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cocolove

Thank you all! I didn't mean to offend anyone with using the word "tone" or "toning up"! What I mean by those words was basically to look great and firm without getting bulky.

Tatyana, do you mean the "girlie" inner thigh machines, outter thigh machines, side lying exercises, etc.? Okay, thats just confimation! I just was told that by someone else who knows there stuff and it seems like you know your stuff too! What do you think of the weight vs. free weights for upper body? Maybe both to change it up!?

Next question: what do all of you think of all the tubes, bands, bars, etc. for changing up the workouts? And what are some good exercises for the behind (booty, "butt")? I know, I know them, but I really want to know the really effective ones!

Thank you!

cocolove

cocolove

Tatyana, thank you for the pictures of the CT scan!

emf

those machines with high rep sets will give you better leg shape then squats and leg presses if your toning.
you prob. dont have to worry about bulking up.what a disgusting word.its pretty tough to get big and muscular.i believe that you should come up with a good combination of exercises that include the type of leg machines that you are talking about and some weight machines to give you more overall muscular shape.real hi reps for shaping.those leg machines your talking about will work well with a good program increased protien. and will power
remember if you look real good or real bad it took a long time to get that way.

DOMS

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Where did you get that idea from?

StanUk

Why oh why must people use this word, you cannot shape a muscle, it either gets bigger, gets smaller or stays the same, end of story.

emf

i poss. used the wrong termenology,and im not going to argue with you guys.bottom line the advice in my reply is correct

CowPimp

Actually the bottom line is that it's deeply rooted in a widespread fallacy.

The only time it's bad to feel the burn is when you're peeing...

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Tatyana

This is my opinion, although you will probably find this echoed by a lot of amazing trainers.

Go old school with bodybuilding first. Free weights, learn proper form.

There is a place for machines, in particular cables and the smith machine however, free weights rule.

A lot of the machines have been designed for 'health clubs' that want to make people feel better that they are 'doing the right thing'.

Best exercises for the bootie are:

Squats
Lunges (I prefer smith machine), some love dumbell walking lunges
Dead lifts (either straight up dead lifts or stiff leg dead lifts)

You will find some other exercises will also hit your glutes like:

Leg press (especially 45 degree angle one)
Back extensions
Laying leg curls

I am not saying don't use the adductor and abductor machines, it is just that I see so many women using these machines, and the butt blasters.

All you need to do is look at women that use these as the main way they train (most women in gyms) and then look at women that do 'proper' weight training. (Google figure girls).

The difference is really obvious.

Don't ignore your upper body. I do fiind it funny that men often do upper body, ignore legs, women will train legs but ignore upper body.

You might like to start out by training three times a week with a split like:

Monday-lower body

Wed-upper body

Friday-lower body

If you hit the weights with enough intensity, all you need is about 30 min three times a week to see changes (that and a healthy diet)

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Tatyana

I am going to say something a bit controversial.

Yes I would agree with you that spot reduction is not possible "oh I just want to lose my belly, or get rid of my bat wings, I have fat on my chest, my thighs are too wobbly'. Spot reduction in this situation does not work AT ALL and it is just people looking for an easy solution.

I would say in a properly prepared physique, sub 10% on a man, sub 16% on a woman, correct diet, spot reduction is possible.

This does not apply to most of the population though.

There is only one study related to this, but there are problems with it.......

American Journal of Physiology Endocrinology and Metabolism 2007 292: 394-399

Danish researchers have shown that spot reduction is effective.

In a study led by Dr. Bentel Stallknecht from the Panum Institute in Copenhagen used radioactive tracers to measure changes in fat mass during high-rep knee extensions.

They also studied blood flow and fat breakdown in fat tissue adjacent to working muscle and in fat tissue around the inactive muscle in the other leg.

After 30 min of doing leg extensions with one leg, subjects switched legs and did knee extensions with the other leg at a higher weight for 120 min.

Blood flow and fat breakdown were greatest around the working muscle.

Spot reducing was more effective at a higher intensity because it generated more heat in the muscle and triggered a higher release of catecholamines.

High-rep, high-weight exercises reduce local fat stores.


This is the problem with the study:

it activates fat use in that area as in intramuscular not subcutaneous.

Subcutaneous is the fat most people want to lose.

If you already have very little subcutaneous fat, I do think you can burn some off.

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CowPimp

Intersting, but what the Hell is high weight, high rep? That is an oxymoron...

Also, was there anything to indicate how much of a difference there was, and also, if the difference in fat storage in that area remained the same long term?

The only time it's bad to feel the burn is when you're peeing...

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Tatyana

I know, I thought that the high weight high reps things was odd too.

I will see if I can get the entire paper again.

All I know is that my coach has the girlies doing hundreds and hundreds of leg extensions and lunges to get them ripped, and it does seem to work.

I also know that when I am doing high reps, it is not like I am using 5 or 10 kg on extensions, it is more like 25-30 kg, and same with squats, usually around 50-60 kg, lunges, 20-30 kg.

Like I have said, I have noticed differences daily when I am quite low in body fat, especially when I rep out a particular body part.

cocolove

Thank you! You are so kind and helpful!

What do you recommend for cardio duration, intensity, frequency, etc.?

Thank you again!

Tatyana

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