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Lifting HEAVY
Pretty recently, I've read article in magazines such as Oxygen, the Bodybuilding.com Body Space Training Bible, etc., saying to get TONE, you must lift heavy. I've also been given advice by WOMEN trainers, to lift heavy. Contrary to what MANY have told me about TONING (lift light, high reps) I'm going to try it because my body hasn't responded to the high reps. WHY do so many people and MEN advise me to lift light, high reps OR ELSE I'll get BIGGER and MASSIVE rather than tight and toned?!?! I WANT TO BE TIGHT AND TONED!
I don't want MASS. I'd love to hear the discussion on this.
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[QUOTE=LinStarr;499478401]Pretty recently, I've read article in magazines such as Oxygen, the Bodybuilding.com Body Space Training Bible, etc., saying to get TONE, you must lift heavy. I've also been given advice by WOMEN trainers, to lift heavy. Contrary to what MANY have told me about TONING (lift light, high reps) I'm going to try it because my body hasn't responded to the high reps. WHY do so many people and MEN advise me to lift light, high reps OR ELSE I'll get BIGGER and MASSIVE rather than tight and toned?!?! I WANT TO BE TIGHT AND TONED!
I don't want MASS. I'd love to hear the discussion on this.[/QUOTE]
I'd go for heavy lifting. You won't get bulky, as you (we) don't have the right testosterone levels to grow really fast, and higher reps make it hard to stimulate your muscles enough to get the look you are after.
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[QUOTE=LinStarr;499478401]Pretty recently, I've read article in magazines such as Oxygen, the Bodybuilding.com Body Space Training Bible, etc., saying to get TONE, you must lift heavy. I've also been given advice by WOMEN trainers, to lift heavy. Contrary to what MANY have told me about TONING (lift light, high reps) I'm going to try it because my body hasn't responded to the high reps. WHY do so many people and MEN advise me to lift light, high reps OR ELSE I'll get BIGGER and MASSIVE rather than tight and toned?!?! I WANT TO BE TIGHT AND TONED!
I don't want MASS. I'd love to hear the discussion on this.[/QUOTE]
It wasn't until I started coming to this site that I realized that there is no such thing as "toning." There is building muscle and there is losing fat. There is not one specific plan to "tone", but if you build muscle and then cut the fat, you will appear "toned." Lifting heavy is the way to go...I didn't start noticing any muscle until I started lifting heavy, but I'm not sure what you want...it sounds like you want muscle because you say you want to be "tight and toned", but then you say you don't want mass...do you want to gain muscle? lose fat? My guess is that you want a strong, fit, athletic body, so I suggest you start lifting heavy...light weights and high reps really never got me anywhere...good luck!
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Hello! I hope you don't mind me chiming in with a question here. What, exactly would be considered lifting heavy (for a beginner like me?).
I've been lurking around here, and reading, and trying to learn. Hi!
Right now, my workout consists of using a 15 pound kettlebell for various exercises. I regularly carry around a 25 pound toddler, so I am sure I could go up in weight, but how do you determine out what is heavy?
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Typically what is heavy for one person may not be heavy for another depending on how strong you are to begin with. However, you can tell it's HEAVY because you can't do 20 reps of it. If anything you are aiming for 8, and 8 should be pretty difficult. For me, right now I am REALLY building strength and I absolutely LOVE it.
I want to have some amazing CUTS, so YES, i want to BUILD muscle and I want it to look AMAZING and cut and I want people to say "wow you must workout." I want DEFINITION. I want separation in my quads, I want my biceps and triceps to show and I want definition in my shoulders and everything in BETWEEN! :) I am almost squatting two plates. Which is PRETTY heavy for me. It could be CAKE for other women who have been lifting longer and heavier. Depends on each person.
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Hmm, is there an official definition of "lifting heavy"? I consider heavy lifting days to be those when I'm doing heavy singles, 3's or 5's and I'm at over over 80 percent of the weight I've established as my one rep max.
And it takes a bucketful of work to gain muscle and strength. At my age and stage of development, I pretty much have to ditch all cardio, eat like a mofo and get lots of sleep along with heavy lifting in order to really see any gains. Unless you're still seeing newbie gains or are exceedingly blessed genetically, you can lift heavy all you want and if the diet and rest isn't there, you're really not going to see any significant muscle development.
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[QUOTE=LinStarr;499478401]Pretty recently, I've read article in magazines such as Oxygen, the Bodybuilding.com Body Space Training Bible, etc., saying to get TONE, you must lift heavy. I've also been given advice by WOMEN trainers, to lift heavy. Contrary to what MANY have told me about TONING (lift light, high reps) I'm going to try it because my body hasn't responded to the high reps. WHY do so many people and MEN advise me to lift light, high reps OR ELSE I'll get BIGGER and MASSIVE rather than tight and toned?!?! I WANT TO BE TIGHT AND TONED!
I don't want MASS. I'd love to hear the discussion on this.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=LinStarr;499514551]Typically what is heavy for one person may not be heavy for another depending on how strong you are to begin with. However, you can tell it's HEAVY because you can't do 20 reps of it. If anything you are aiming for 8, and 8 should be pretty difficult. For me, right now I am REALLY building strength and I absolutely LOVE it.
I want to have some amazing CUTS, so YES, i want to BUILD muscle and I want it to look AMAZING and cut and I want people to say "wow you must workout." I want DEFINITION. I want separation in my quads, I want my biceps and triceps to show and I want definition in my shoulders and everything in BETWEEN! :) I am almost squatting two plates. Which is PRETTY heavy for me. It could be CAKE for other women who have been lifting longer and heavier. Depends on each person.[/QUOTE]
I might be out of my depth here to say it, but I'm going to go ahead and call troll.
If not, go to the supersite and read the articles.
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[QUOTE=LinStarr;499478401]Pretty recently, I've read article in magazines such as Oxygen, the Bodybuilding.com Body Space Training Bible, etc., saying to get TONE, you must lift heavy. I've also been given advice by WOMEN trainers, to lift heavy. Contrary to what MANY have told me about TONING (lift light, high reps) I'm going to try it because my body hasn't responded to the high reps. WHY do so many people and MEN advise me to lift light, high reps OR ELSE I'll get BIGGER and MASSIVE rather than tight and toned?!?! I WANT TO BE TIGHT AND TONED!
I don't want MASS. I'd love to hear the discussion on this.[/QUOTE]
Ok, there is no such thing as 'toning', it doesn't exist. How you look really depends on one thing, muscle to fat ratio. This can be manipulated two ways.
1. Decrease fat levels.
2. Increase muscle levels.
A large part of either of those is diet. Either eating at a deficit, or at a surplus depending on which one you are doing. Many smaller women believe they can't see any muscle definition because they have too much fat, when in reality their issue is not enough muscle (ie skinny-fat).
If you want to see muscle definition you need to eat at a surplus and lift heavy. Light weight/high reps isn't challenging enough to build any muscle. Especially because so many women do light weight/high reps while cutting calories. If you want to build muscle you have to eat at a surplus, your body needs something to build muscle from.
Building muscle is a form of mass. Since muscle is denser than fat, adding muscle generally does not cause the same increases in size that adding fat does. Women do not get "big" or "bulky" on accident, we just don't have the hormones for it.
[QUOTE=MrB1g;499559711]I might be out of my depth here to say it, but I'm going to go ahead and call troll.
If not, go to the supersite and read the articles.[/QUOTE]
Eff off. This isn't the misc, ignorance doesn't = toll in these parts.
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[QUOTE=Adelaide.;499593651]Eff off. This isn't the misc, ignorance doesn't = toll in these parts.[/QUOTE]
I'm not a miscer.
If you want to check my other posts in this section I don't care whether someone is knowledgable about lifting or not, I do my best and take my time to write up good responses to help them out.
Her avatar and her comment about squats just seem troll-ish to me.
If she's not a troll then she is at a level where writing up a single response isn't sufficient and she needs to acquaint herself with the basics, all of which are covered in depth in the supersite, which is what I said.
Not every male is a misogynistic dick like the guys in the misc.
[QUOTE=LinStarr;499514551]I am almost squatting two plates. Which is PRETTY heavy for me. It could be CAKE for other women who have been lifting longer and heavier.[/QUOTE]
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I'd say lifting heavy = lifting as much as you can tolerate, and lifting light = lifting what you're comfortable with. I've seen the most results by lifting a weight that's as heavy as I can manage GOOD FORM no higher than 8-10 reps. You'll be surprised how strong you actually are if you play around a bit with the amount of weight.
When I want to maintain (the small amount of muscle that I do have lol) I aim for 12 reps. And the ONLY WAY you're going to see those cuts is from your DIET
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[QUOTE=MrB1g;499559711]I might be out of my depth here to say it, but I'm going to go ahead and call troll.
If not, go to the supersite and read the articles.[/QUOTE]
Wouldn't usually post this but needed to jump to your defense. Didnt take it as misc-y at all because of the disconnect between OP's posts. I too find it hard to believe that someone who is just now making the transition from high rep-low weight to lifting heavy -- and questioning whether this is a good move for definition but not mass -- is squatting Almost 2 plates. That's almost 225 pounds at 130 bodyweight. Possible, perhaps, but unlikely.
Only makes sense, really, if she is gifted genetically or doesn't know that pLates usually refers to the 45 pound ones.
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...or a shallow squat, or on the Smith machine, etc.
OP, strength and fitness are built in the gym, size is built at the dinner table. It doesn't matter how heavy you lift, if you eat a bowl of rice and a stick of celery a day you are not going to get bigger muscles. To get big muscles, you have to, as Ms Bumbler so well put it, "eat like a mofo."
Given your past posting history, I strongly suspect that your eating is very very far from Mofo Level.
If you say "tone" again I will have to come visit you and show you what "lifting heavy" really means. And if you put it in caps, I may speak frankly to you about women and strength, too, which is even worse.
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[QUOTE=strong kathy;499579811]What is getting TONED ??[/QUOTE]
Basically getting toned is losing body fat, thats all.
*Note to self, how the eff did I wind up in the female section :/
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In order to get the cut and definition you've got to have the muscle to support the look. This means when you start losing body fat, there has to be muscle underneath to work with. If not you'll end up with a look of skinny/no definition.
Getting bulky/massive doesn't happen when lifting heavy. It happens when people are higher in body fat and mistaking the "bulk" for muscle gains. It takes years/decades to build that kind of muscle.
What is considered heavy is individual. To me it's literally fighting for those last couple reps with everything I've got.
You're not going to build any decent amount of muscle doing light weight/high rep crap.
Women always wonder why it takes so long and why they're not making any gains, blah, blah, blah.
I'll tell you why...because most women seriously don't know how to take themselves beyond their comfort zone.
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[QUOTE=MrB1g;499615191]I'm not a miscer.
If you want to check my other posts in this section I don't care whether someone is knowledgable about lifting or not, I do my best and take my time to write up good responses to help them out.
Her avatar and her comment about squats just seem troll-ish to me.
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Sorry. This is just the only website I've ever been on were people get called a troll for asking uneducated, ignorant or simple questions. It's irritating as hell to me because it's so elitist and belittling. To me a troll is someone who is coming in and deliberately being a bullying-obnoxious-pain-in-the-arse without any interest in the actual content of the forum.
I'm pretty sure the OPs squat comment is born out of ignorance for BB slang rather than BS.
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[QUOTE=Adelaide.;499698941]Sorry. This is just the only website I've ever been on were people get called a troll for asking uneducated, ignorant or simple questions. It's irritating as hell to me because it's so elitist and belittling. To me a troll is someone who is coming in and deliberately being a bullying-obnoxious-pain-in-the-arse without any interest in the actual content of the forum.
I'm pretty sure the OPs squat comment is born out of ignorance for BB slang rather than BS.[/QUOTE]
I see trolls the same way you do...laced in red skittles...
MrB is a good kid an has been helpful in these parts of the waters.
Linstarr is not a troll.
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[QUOTE=Adelaide.;499698941]Sorry. This is just the only website I've ever been on were people get called a troll for asking uneducated, ignorant or simple questions. It's irritating as hell to me because it's so elitist and belittling. To me a troll is someone who is coming in and deliberately being a bullying-obnoxious-pain-in-the-arse without any interest in the actual content of the forum.
I'm pretty sure the OPs squat comment is born out of ignorance for BB slang rather than BS.[/QUOTE]
Fair enough. Like I said, just her avatar (looks like a picture you'd get off google) and a remarkably strong squat despite being new to training made me sceptical.
Excuse my cynicism, I'm from the teen section. There's more trolls than real posters.
[QUOTE=kimm4;499701141]I see trolls the same way you do...laced in red skittles...
MrB is a good kid an has been helpful in these parts of the waters.
Linstarr is not a troll.[/QUOTE]
The slightest bit patronising but still very much appreciated.
LinStarr, apologies. My mistake.
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[QUOTE=kimm4;499701141]I see trolls the same way you do...laced in red skittles...
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Red skittles?
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[QUOTE=KyleAaron;499681941]...or a shallow squat, or on the Smith machine, etc.
If you say "tone" again I will have to come visit you and show you what "lifting heavy" really means. And if you put it in caps, I may speak frankly to you about women and strength, too, which is even worse.[/QUOTE]
Listen the KyleAaron and Kimm4 ... actually most of the people who have posted...
I just had to laugh at the last comment... You sure you aren't Irish mate?
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[QUOTE=smdiskin;499729041]I just had to laugh at the last comment... You sure you aren't Irish mate?[/QUOTE]
My heritage is very mixed, but contains a touch of the tater-muncher.
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It had to be there... Some of your comments that I've noticed over the last while have a touch of humour/sarcasm whatever you want to call it that the non-Irish just don't always understand... def not here in Bots anyway... people would take it wrong... LOL
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I think that's just Aussie stuff, mate. We get it from the Brits.
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T-O-N-E
Four letter word :)
Don't we discuss this topic on a DAILY basis with pretty much every female noob that comes onto the board? As well as the many men who follow the young girls here to tell them to do more cardio and eat less? It is a constant litany, IMO.
Squatting 2, 45 pound plates below parallel barbell---pics or it didn't happen lol.
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[QUOTE=BestYearEver;499679061]Wouldn't usually post this but needed to jump to your defense. Didnt take it as misc-y at all because of the disconnect between OP's posts. I too find it hard to believe that someone who is just now making the transition from high rep-low weight to lifting heavy -- and questioning whether this is a good move for definition but not mass -- is squatting Almost 2 plates. That's almost 225 pounds at 130 bodyweight. Possible, perhaps, but unlikely.
Only makes sense, really, if she is gifted genetically or doesn't know that pLates usually refers to the 45 pound ones.[/QUOTE]
Or, the misconception that 2 plates really = 2 plates... that is, the bar and one plate on each side= 135.
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[QUOTE=smdiskin;499751711]It had to be there... Some of your comments that I've noticed over the last while have a touch of humour/sarcasm whatever you want to call it that the non-Irish just don't always understand... def not here in Bots anyway... people would take it wrong... LOL[/QUOTE]
I just realized... this might be why strangers and some of my friends that haven't known me for long always take my sense of humor very seriously and think I'm being a *******, when I'm really not (only way I could describe it). I grew up with my dad's side of the family and they're all full blooded Irish haha also I recall them saying really sarcastic/serious-type things but it was all to make you smile
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[QUOTE=Adelaide.;499724811]Red skittles?[/QUOTE]
LOL meaning they're usually in the red instead of green....:)
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Wow!!!
Quite the stir I've caused in this thread.
Let me clear things up first of all.
squatting using 2 plates total (1 - 45lb on each side) yes I JUST learned that "plate" is the word for 45 lb
I work on my legs a lot and I am a dancer so they are pretty strong, much stronger than my upper body. I am working on this and just recently finished a 4 week calorie increase to build more muscle and strength.
@ the Troll comment, that's extremely unncessary and doesn't contribute to the POINT of this website or FORUM. If you have nothing intellectual/educational to post, BUGGER OFF.
Perhaps being a "noob" I am still learning the terminology of everything. Give me a BREAK!
I want to BUILD MUSCLE and STRENGTH and LOSE FAT. I want to be able to see definition. I'll avoid using the four letter word I previous used in the future as it clearly offends people and must be unclear.
As for my picture, "it looks like something you can get off google" I'm assuming because it's a professional picture? Would it make everyone happy if I took it down and put a non pro pic?
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mofo...
[QUOTE=KyleAaron;499681941]...or a shallow squat, or on the Smith machine, etc.
OP, strength and fitness are built in the gym, size is built at the dinner table. It doesn't matter how heavy you lift, if you eat a bowl of rice and a stick of celery a day you are not going to get bigger muscles. To get big muscles, you have to, as Ms Bumbler so well put it, "eat like a mofo."
Given your past posting history, I strongly suspect that your eating is very very far from Mofo Level.
If you say "tone" again I will have to come visit you and show you what "lifting heavy" really means. And if you put it in caps, I may speak frankly to you about women and strength, too, which is even worse.[/QUOTE]
haha no you are CORRECT Kylearron, I don't eat like a MOFO. I just finished an 4 week where I sure felt like I was eating like a mofo, but it was at maintenance (2000 cal) now I am doing 1400 - which is not close to a mofo
LOL. SORRY for the four letter word that sometimes is used to describe skin color....LOL or used in music....I will NEVER EVER USE it again! :-P
and GOOD to hear I won't get "huge" because I keep getting advice from random men, not to single out and i'm NOT saying its from bodybuilding.com either, who say I am going to get "massive" or "huge" because I am lifing heavy. I wanna sock it to them and tell them I won't! I want to be well versed enough so I can SHUT THEM UP. :)