Honey, Does This Squat Rack Make Me Look Fat?

August 18, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Weight Training, Women's Fitness, mens-fitness 

Like a good husband assessing his wife’s newest bathing suit purchase, the answer is always “NO!”   Squats and other resistance training exercises will not make you big and bulky.  What they will do is create muscle, which in turn helps you in your efforts to burn fat. As a result, you’ll lose weight and you’ll look thinner and healthier. (see video below)


I spend an hour at the gym 3 or 4 times a week and I see the same people pretty much every time I go. There are those who spend time in the free weight area and those who spend time on the bikes and treadmills. Some do both. But I notice that there is a group of people who kill themselves, some every single day, doing a half hour or more on the treadmill or an hour on the recumbent or stationary bike. And I know they’re telling themselves and maybe even their friends, “I workout every day for an hour and I just can’t make any progress.”

Get Off The Treadmill

Can I please tell you to stop doing it?  Cardio” is a good thing.  It is.  You really should incorporate it into your workout a few days a week.  Tack it on to your workout after you do your resistance training if you like or set aside days in between your resistance training workouts to do your cardio. And do cardio you enjoy!  Get out on a real bike, go for a brisk walk or jog. But if you’re one of the people that is slaving away on the treadmill, bike or other cardio routine every day, because your goal is to get smaller, skinnier, lose fat, BURN IT ALL OFF, please stop, and start lifting some weights.

Resistance Training

The phrase ‘resistance training’ includes weight lifting but does not have to include weights to be resistance training. For example, performing a squat using just your body weight, is an example of resistance training. Pushups, pull-ups, bench press (with a bar or dumbbells or cans of soup), etc. are all examples. What distinguishes resistance training from cardio is the use of sets with rest in between and the fact that each set is performed with an amount of weight that causes you to approach muscle failure after a number of repetitions.

For example, to train your legs, you might do squats with no weight or with dumbbells for 10-15 repetitions, depending on your level of fitness. If you do them properly (see video) and you’re using enough weight (resistance), you should fatigue and not be able to do any more after you squat 10-15 times. At this point you should rest for 2-3 minutes to catch your breath and then do another set of 10-15 reps. If you’re new to this, don’t work to failure. Just work until you don’t feel like you should not do any more reps. What’s happening during a resistance training workout is that you are actually breaking down muscle tissue. That’s why you work almost to failure and rest in between sets. After 2-3 sets of this exercise, you can move on to another exercise and workout in similar fashion (watch the articles list for sample exercises and workouts).

A resistance training workout should last no more than 30-45 minutes unless you are an experienced weight lifter. You can normally perform several exercises for 2-3 sets per exercise and 10-15 repetitions per exercise. At the end of a workout for your legs, your legs will be a little rubbery and you’ll probably experience soreness the next day or so. You should not work these muscles again for at least several days. The reason for this is that muscle growth does not occur while you’re working the muscle. It occurs during the rest period after the workout as your muscles repair themselves and seek to be stronger for your next workout. The cycle of muscle repair is also what causes your metabolism to continue to burn fat long after your workout (which is NOT true of cardio).

Here’s a typical leg workout that might work for someone looking to do just legs in a short amount of time:
Squats - 2- 3 sets of 10-15 repetitions with 2-3 minutes rest in between (gluteus, quadriceps and hamstrings)

Lunges - 2-3 sets of 10-15 repetitions with 2-3 minutes rest in between sets (same but more emphasis on hamstrings)

Standing Calf Raises - 2-3 sets of 10-15 repetitions with 2-3 minutes rest in between sets (calf)

Depending on your level of strength and conditioning, you might add 2-3 sets of either a leg curl or a leg extension but if you’re a beginner, wait and see how the basic workout works for you and you can increase your weight or add an exercise next week.

After a day of rest, you can move on to an upper body workout. Watch for an article with some sample upper body workouts. Also, don’t forget to do some cardio AFTER or in between resistance training days.

Consult your doctor before beginning any exercise program to make sure you don’t cause yourself any injury!

For more exercises, exercise routines and workout programs, please visit the workouts section of MyBodySite.com. 

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Alcohol Contributes to Belly Fat

July 9, 2009 by Jen Rendfrey · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Miscellaneous, Nutrition, Women's Fitness, mens-fitness 

By understanding what happens when you drink, you can make your own judgment calls as to whether or not alcohol should be included in your workout and muscle-building (dieting) plan. Yes, muscle building…Remember muscle speeds your metabolism!

Alcohol and growth hormones
One major issue with the consumption of alcohol has to do with its effects on the release of growth hormone. Growth hormone is the substance in the body that plays a very large role when it comes to building muscle, stimulating other cell growth and development, and promoting optimal bone growth. When this hormone is low, you aren’t going to get the same amount of muscle development as you would when it’s at an optimal level.

Growth hormone is predominately secreted during the early sleeping hours of the night and becausealcohol tends to disrupt the natural sleep rhythms that occur, it will decrease the amount of growth hormone released. This decrease can be up to as much as 70%, so it will really short-circuit the progress you are able to make.

Alcohol and recovery (Alcohol is a TOXIN to the body)
Another area that alcohol affects when it comes to muscle building is your ability to recover. Since alcoholis a toxin to the body, energy is going to have to be expended in order to remove it from the system and to recover from any negative effects it has had on the tissues.

Since this takes time and energy reserves, you won’t have as much energy in store to recover from your workouts, therefore you will not be as fresh when you return for your next gym session.

Alcohol and muscles don’t usually get along, so consume with care:)

Alcohol and dehydration
Dehydration is another issue you have to watch out for if you choose to drink alcohol while trying to build muscle and work out. Since alcohol acts as a diuretic in the body, unless you are sure to replace the extra fluid with water or another non-alcoholic beverage that doesn’t contain caffeine, your natural water balance will be disrupted.

Dehydration has a number of negative effects on the body, from inducing feelings of fatigue to causing low physical performance, making you feel hungrier (which is especially problematic while dieting), and disrupting the ability of the muscle cells to produce ATP — which is your primary source of muscular energy.

Alcohol and glycogen synthesis
Aside from ATP, the next source for muscular work is stored muscle glycogen. Unfortunately, though, when you consume alcoholic beverages, alcohol synthesis will take precedence over glycogen synthesis, resulting in decreased stores in the muscle cells.

When you go to do your next workout, your body will have less energy to run on, causing fatigue to set in early. (NOTE: this is the perfect setting for injury and another reason to avoid alcohol)

When your workouts are ended prematurely , you won’t derive as many benefits in terms of increases in strength since the necessary overloading stimulus (which is partly defined through volume of weights lifted) will not be increased.

Alcohol and aerobic ability
Even when it comes to aerobic activities, alcohol affects performance.

In this scenario, alcohol can cause an increase in blood pressure throughout the body and a corresponding increase in heart rate.

Since your heart will already be working at an increased rate during aerobic activities, the additional stress from the alcohol will only amplify the heart rate and make the exercise feel harder than it should. 

I know what you are thinking…NO drinking alcohol is not good stress on the heart! So increasing your heart rate through drinking isn’t the same as hitting the treadmill.

Alcohol and body fat
Finally, the last issue surrounding alcohol consumption is that it contains calories, and these do add up quickly. At seven calories per gram, after three or four drinks, these calories would equal a good-sized meal. Unless you are going to cut down on food intake in order to make room for these calories (which is rare, as usually you’ll actually find yourself snacking on high-calorie items such as nuts, pizza, wings or nachos), fat gain will result.

So, next time you’re contemplating whether or not you should have that drink, keep these factors in mind. Definitely, alcohol and muscle building are not a good pair, as stated by all the above points!

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