Thread: Helping a friend... so I need help!

I dont see the problem with her doing 8-10. High reps dont 'tone', and she wont put on muscle by accident.

That said, if she hasnt been in training for a while it might be a good idea to start at a lower intensity and work up through some sort of accumulation phase leading up to lower reps in the near future.

Do you have an assisted pullups/dips machine?

What exact program are we talking about here? Post it up!

Originally Posted by GOtriSports

Alright everyone so I feel as though I have my routine pretty solid and have been working with it for a while. I have had multiple guy friends ask me for help in the gym and I have gotten them all set up on a decent routine, but today I was thrown for a loop! Hopefully you can help!

A female friend of mine said she wants to come with me to the gym and workout. Her stated goal is the typical response when you ask girls why they go to the gym "I don't want to get muscular I want to tone up" SO what I am wondering would it be alright for her to follow my lifting routine but only doing light weight and set of say 20 instead of 8-10?

Good question - and interestingly, no.

Tell her it took me seven years of really, REALLY trying, deliberately overeating and training like a mofo to gain about 12 lbs of lean mass. If she doesn't want to look muscular, the answer is simple: don't eat enough to gain weight, but eat enough to avoid losing too much fat. I'm not very big, but I look muscular because I have a LITTLE more muscle than most women, and I'm leaner than most women. I still only wear a size 2.

There's actually no such thing as "toning exercises" - you can't flex fat, and what she really wants (but doesn't have the right words for, because the industry has been lying to women about this for decades) is to drop bodyfat but not gain muscle. This is so easy to do it's silly: lift weights like a guy, using low reps and progressive overload - and maintain a SLIGHT deficit in her diet. FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal track and then plan out a modest (20% below maintenance) deficit until she hits goal. Same macro recommendations you usually see around here, at least a gram of protein and at least a half a gram of fat per pound LBM. Estimate her LBM as 80% of her goal weight, it'll be close enough for this purpose.

I recommend she lay off the carbs, particularly if she carries her bodyfat in her legs. Alpha-2 adrenoreceptors direct and hold fat there, but they get less aggressive about it on a low carb diet - no insulin to wake 'em up.

Tell her to get off the pill while you're at it - if she's on of course. If she can't, tell her to drastically reduce her carb intake. Oral contraceptives are oral anabolic steriods, but they're anabolic to FAT - and they induce insulin resistance.

Originally Posted by GOtriSports

Also, when I am doing Dips and Pull ups what can I get her to do instead?
By the looks of her body you would already assume she is in good shape but she has not seriously worked out in 7 or 8 months and she is basically coming with me because she wants me to set her up on a routine and help keep her motivated... any advice would be greatly appreciated! (I am hoping for a post from built haha)!

LOL! Yep, I'm on this like white on rice, hey?

Have her start with "basically training" on my blog: Got Built? » Open Source Fitness - Get started here

When you start her with squats, use goblets and I am NOT kidding when I say start STUPIDLY light. Pick a weight you'd start an out of shape guy her weight with, then divide that in HALF. I started doing squats with "just" the bar and I couldn't walk for three days! When I did them again, I used 8-lb dumbbells. It took me three MONTHS to work up to the bar, and a year to work up to a plate a side.

For dips and chins, how about bench dips with her feet on the floor and her hands on the bench, and for chins, have her do negative-only chins. You do these at the Smith machine (it's good for something!) with the bar set up so when standing on a low platform, the bar is at eye level. Get to "up" any way you can (standing is fine), lower to a count of five if possible. Get back to "up" using as much or as little assistance with the toes on the platform as required.

As with the fellas, shoulder-width or narrower. Wide grip doesn't build width - it just builds rotator cuff damage.

And as I generally recommend to everyone, avoid machines for lifting.

If she wants to do any cardio, have her read "how to do cardio if you must" and pick a few different types (bicycle sprints, treadmill springts, hill repeats) to rotate through.

Does this help?