Is there a difference between exercising 5 days a week or 6 if the total exercise time is 6 hours? Lately I seem to be have trouble finding time every day and only make 5 days a lot of weeks. I still manage to get in 6 hours.
Also, I’m a woman, and I don’t want big muscles, but I lift weights 3 days a week (about 1.5 hours of my 6 hours). Most of the advice I see on weight-lifting is for large masculine muscles. I just want to lose fat. Any advice? I use a pulley-weight gym at home instead of free weights. I’m getting very frustrated by the fact that I don’t look like I want to look.
FIrst of all, it is extremely hard to get large muscles. For women it is near impossible without supplementing your hormones. It is not like you are just doing sets one day and all of the sudden “POOF” you are huge. So don’t worry about that.
Second, you are not going to get good results in toning and shaping with pulley type weights. you should be doing free weights.
third, you are probably thwarted more by excess fat than anything else. Good muscle tone doesn’t show under 1.5" of fat. Lifting weights will not help. You need to do an aerobic workout (20 minutes of aerobic activity at the least.) Once you get over this, I don’t think that it matters how many days you work out as long as your workouts are long enouhg.
Finally, no workout will help much if your diet is not good.
MAybe you could discuss more specific goals and I can help more.
If your primary goal is to lose fat, the majority of your exercise should focus on cadiovascular training with weight training being a supplement to balance things out. You also should consider doing the weights as a circuit training regiment. This is where you do high reps and move quickly from one exercise to another in order to keep your heart rate at a certain level. This is easier at a gym but is doable at home. For example, you could do lat pulldowns on your machine, then switch to pushups then switch to crunches then start over and try to keep it moving.
It is a fact that free weights are the most efficient form of weight training but since you’re not interested in mass or powerlifting, I don’t feel you need to worry about that.
The number of times you work out isn’t as important as making sure you get enough rest between exercise periods so that your body can recuperate and you avoid overtraining. 6 hours/week probably isn’t a problem regardless of whether it’s spread over 5 or 6 days. In my younger days, I did a minimum of 2 hours/day weightlifting and 2 hours/day martial arts for 6 days/week. I don’t think I ever had a problem with overtraining.
If you want big muscles, you lift heavy weights with fewer repetitions. For not so big muscles (more for toning), you want to use less weight and more repetition.
More well toned muscles will help you lose fat compared to weak muscles, but not dramatically. You need to do aerobic exercise to lose the fat. As was previously mentioned, you have to watch your diet at the same time.
5 days straight vs. 6 days straight probably doesn’t make much of a difference, but it will be better for your body if you do 3 days exercise, 1 day off, 2 days exercise, 1 day off, to get your 5 day total. Your body can use the 1 day off to recover and rebuild.
I will recommend that you read the book Strong Women Stay Slim, by Miriam E. Nelson, Ph.D.
Her research into using weight training to help older women regain bone density (described in her book Strong Women Stay Young) also found that these women’s metabolisms were increased significantly by the regular use of light free weights. She didn’t intend that her subjects necessarily lose weight, but they did, so she wrote a book focusing on this aspect of her research. Comparing women who ate sensibly and exercised to women who did that plus did some light weight training, she found that the weight training made a big difference. It’s worth a read.
Thanks for all these great responses so far. I’ll try to expound on my current regimen. Three days a week I lift weights with the weight machine. Six days a week I use a stationery bike for between 30 minutes and an hour.
I used to split the aerobic time between the bike and a stairclimber, but the stairclimber broke and I refuse to spend any more money to repair it (after doing so 4 times previously). As a side note, I’m saving up for an incline treadmill but for now the bike is all I have.
The weights I do include leg lifts, lat pulldowns and ab crunches. It’s a total of about 10 different exercises. Most of the weights are done at 20 or 30 pounds, anywhere from 2 to 4 sets of 10 reps each. Only one is over 30 pounds (I find lat pulldowns very easy to do).
I confess that my diet is not good. I don’t like vegetables much and don’t eat near as much of them as I should. I drink too much diet Coke/Pepsi and though I drink a lot of water while I exercise, I don’t drink much at other times. A lot of dinners are things like Hamburger Helpers, spaghetti, hot dogs, etc. No alcohol.
I have actually noticed benefits to the exercise. I have buns of steel and my forearms and calves are practically fat free. And I’m only mildly sore for about a day from an entire day of paintball instead of the way a friend was: so sore he couldn’t move two days later (you spend a lot of time crouching and being in positions you don’t normally get into and if you’re not used to it, it’s painful).
I hope this isn’t too much of a hijack, but this comment.
reminded me. I’ve heard this from other people, but they’ve not mentioned why or how free weights are better than pulley machines. Could you expound on this, please Mr. Zambezi?
I am relying partially on the wisdom of the experts.
With pulleys, the motion of the machine is carefully controlled on a single plane. For example, the bench press: you aren’t in jeapordy of the weight going ot the side, or backwards or forwarrds as you are with freeweights. So you use one very specific muscle group to move the weight up and down.
Because of the freedom (and danger) of freeweights, you have to use all of the muscles in the area to control the weight.
Freeweights also require more balance and timing, so are a superior excercise.
There may be more to it, and I may be off a bit, but that is how I understand it. I do know that I can rip off reps with a full stack on the pulley machine, but struggle with lesser weight on the free weights. Much of this is due, I am sure, with the pulleys helping to lift the weight.
I can’t agree with you, Zambezi. It is true machines isolate the muscles, but that doesn’t mean you’re not toning them. I think that’s propaganda put out by all the muscle builders who do only free weights. In fact, one of the good things about machines is that you an isolate a muscle group and work on that muscle alone, without aid of the other muscles. This specifies the muscle you’re working on. I’ve been doing Nautilus for over 20 years with good results.
One pound of muscle uses 50 calories a day; whereas, one pound of fat uses ust 2 calories a day. So having more muscle you will lose more weight than just sitting down typing on the computer.
I do not have the bona fides to really argue this, and I refuse to quote a bunch of mscle mags. I can say that I have been working out on and off for 19 years and I have never once met a ripped, toned weightlifter who used a machine.
I will stand by my comment that free weights require you to balance weights and use much more control.
The bottom line though is that you should use what you enjoy more. IF you do not like freeweights, you will probably quit using them at some point.
Didn’t say I was ripped. Toned, yes, but not ripped. I’m not strong enough to be ripped and I only do two sets of each muscle group every other day, 8-12 for the upper body and 15-20 for the torso and lower body. I see even weight lifters doing the machines, but they’re doing umpteen sets with heavy weights and few reps. If you want just toning, do lesser weights with more reps, as I’ve done.
Thank you for your answer Mr.Zambezi. I kinda suspected it was something along those lines 'cause I’ve noticed I can bench press higher numbers on the Nautalus machine than I can with free weights. FTR, I’m just a middle-aged guy trying to get my weight down and keep my back muscles toned up so I’m not exactly in the know about this stuff.
and my forearms and calves are practically fat free. And I’m only mildly sore for about a day from an entire day of paintball instead of the way a friend was: so sore he couldn’t move two days later (you spend a lot of time crouching and being in positions you don’t normally get into and if you’re not used to it, it’s painful).